THE CHICAGO THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY

TOWARD A PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORY OF SPIRITUAL TRANSFORMATION

A DISSERTATION
SUBMITTED TO THE CHICAGO THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY
FACULTY IN THE CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

PhD Granted 14 May 2005

PhD Committee Chair And Academic Advisor
Dr. Robert L. Moore, Board Of Trustees And Friends Distinguished Service Professor
Of Psychology, Psychoanalysis, And Spirituality

© PEGGY KAY 2005, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, USA

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CONTENTS

FOREWORD ................................................................................... VI

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................ VII

INTRODUCTION: PURPOSE, METHODOLOGY, AND SURVEY .......... 8

Purpose ............................................................................................................... 9

Methodology .................................................................................................... 10
Step One - The Territory of Selected Texts ...................................................................... 13
Step Two - Critical Analysis of Texts of Each Thinker ........................................................ 14
Step Three - Comparison of Analyses of the Texts for an Integrated Understanding ........... 15
Step Four - From Integrated Understanding to Theoretical Formulation ............................. 16
Citation Formats ........................................................................................................... 18

Survey............................................................................................................... 20

Response to Feminist, Social, and Political Critique of the Individual Approach to

Human Spirituality ............................................................................................ 23

WORKING DEFINITIONS .............................................................. 28

Definitions ......................................................................................................... 31
Spirituality .................................................................................................................... 32
Spiritual ....................................................................................................................... 33
Transformation ............................................................................................................. 35
Spiritual transformation ................................................................................................. 36
Psychological Theory .................................................................................................... 37
Psychological Model ..................................................................................................... 38

PART ONE: THE TWO THINKERS DESCRIBED ................................. 40

CHAPTER ONE: CARL JUNG AND INDIVIDUATION ....................... 42

Carl Gustav Jung ............................................................................................... 43

Jung’s Social Location and Methodology .......................................................... 46

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Historical Context of Individuation .................................................................... 58

Individuation Defined........................................................................................ 60

Individuation As Spiritual Transformation Through the Life Cycle: Self-Realization of the

Unconscious ...................................................................................................... 62

CHAPTER TWO: ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS AND THE DARK NIGHT .... 78

St. John of the Cross.......................................................................................... 79

John’s Social Location and Methodology .......................................................... 86

Historical Context of The Dark Night .................................................................... 94

The Dark Night Defined, as Metaphor, and “Dark Night of the Soul” ................. 98
Dark Night Defined ...................................................................................................... 98
Dark Night as Metaphor ............................................................................................. 102
The Term “Dark Night of the Soul”............................................................................... 104

The Dark Night as Spiritual Transformation in Stages: Life Cycle, Developmental, Episodic
........................................................................................................................ 106

PART TWO: THE TWO THINKERS COMPARED ............................. 112

CHAPTER THREE: JUNGIAN DEPTH PSYCHOLOGY AS FRAMEWORK FOR

ST. JOHN’S SPIRITUAL THEOLOGY ............................................. 114

Individuation as Psychological Framework..................................................... 114

The First Frame: Individuation as Contemporary Framework for Historic Religious and
Cultural Process ............................................................................................... 116

The Second Frame: Individuation as Psychic Transformation Frames Spiritual

Transformation................................................................................................ 118

The Third Frame: Individuation as Individual Choice Frames Collective

Religious/Social/Cultural and Spiritual Transformation .................................. 118

The Fourth Frame: Individuation As Psychic Process of Consciousness Frames Receipt Of

God’s Agency and Input Into Spiritual Transformation ................................... 123
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The Fifth Frame: Individuation As Life Span Temporal Frame for the Dark Night as Life
Event or Passage............................................................................................. 135

CHAPTER FOUR: ST. JOHN’S SPIRITUAL THEOLOGY ENHANCING

JUNGIAN PSYCHOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK ................................. 137

The Dark Night as Theological Enhancement of Psychological Framework ........ 137

The First Flesh Out: Spiritual Transformation Process Fleshes Out Psychic
Transformation (The Second Individuation Frame) .......................................... 140

The Second Flesh-Out: The Dark Night as Life Event or Passage Fleshes Out the Life
Span Temporal Frame (The Fifth Frame of Individuation) ................................ 144

The Third Flesh-Out: Receipt Of God’s Agency and Input of Spiritual Transformation
Into Psychic Process as Consciousness (The Fourth Frame of Individuation) .... 146

The Fourth Flesh-Out: Collective Religious/Social/Cultural and Spiritual Transformation

Fleshes Out Individuation as Individual Choice (The Third Frame) ................... 153

The Fifth Flesh-Out: Historic Religious and Cultural Process Fleshes Out Individuation as
Contemporary Framework (The First Frame) .................................................. 167

PART THREE: THE TWO THINKERS INTEGRATED .......................... 172

CHAPTER FIVE: TOWARD A PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORY BASED ON AN

INTEGRATION OF JUNG’S INDIVIDUATION AND ST. JOHN’S DARK
NIGHT ........................................................................................ 174

Approaching the Theory.................................................................................. 176

The First Conceptual Approach: Therapeutic Attitudes ................................................... 176
The Second Conceptual Approach: Primary Focus on Client Process and Secondary Focus on
Therapist Process ........................................................................................................ 178
The Third Conceptual Approach: All Previous Definitions and Assumptions Carry Forward180

A Three-Step Methodological Approach: Construction, Analysis, and Understanding of

the Theory ....................................................................................................... 180
Step One: Establishing Structure of the Theory as Integration of the Five Frames ............. 181
The First Frame Fleshed Out: Individuation as Contemporary Framework for Historic Religious and
Cultural Process ...................................................................................................... 182
The Second Frame Fleshed Out: Individuation as Psychic Transformation Frames Spiritual
Transformation ....................................................................................................... 184
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The Third Frame Fleshed Out: Individuation as Individual Choice Frames Collective
Religious/Social/Cultural and Spiritual Transformation .............................................. 186
The Fourth Frame Fleshed Out: Individuation As Psychic Process of Consciousness Frames Receipt
Of God’s Agency and Input Into Spiritual Transformation .......................................... 192
The Fifth Frame Fleshed Out: Individuation As Life Span Temporal Frame for the Dark Night as
Life Event or Passage .............................................................................................. 199
Framework Summary .................................................................................................. 201
Step Two: The Integrated Structure of the Theory Analyzed for Experience of Persons and
Interaction of Therapist................................................................................................ 202
The First Integrated Frame: The Contemporary Psychological Revision of Personal Participation in
Traditional Historic Religious and Cultural Rites of Initiation and Passage .................... 204
The Second Integrated Frame: The Person Experiences Spiritual Transformation In Episodes,
Phases, And Passages, As Part Of Psychic Transformation ......................................... 208
The Third Integrated Frame: The Contemporary Individuating Person Chooses Participation in
Historically Religious, Cultural, and Social Processes ................................................. 210
The Fourth Integrated Frame: The Person Receives God’s Input as Spiritual Transformation in
Psychic Transformation of Individuation .................................................................... 217
The Fifth Integrated Frame: The Psychic Life Course of the Person Transformed in Spiritual
Passages Through the Dark Nights ........................................................................... 220
Step Three: Melding the Five Integrated Frames to Understand the Psychological Theory of Spiritual
Transformation ........................................................................................................... 223

Summarizing the Integrated and Melded Theory ............................................ 224

Some Concluding Statements .......................................................................... 225

AFTERWORD: IMPLICATIONS, CONCLUSIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS

FROM THE THEORY FOR FUTURE THERAPEUTIC PRACTICE AND RESEARCH
.................................................................................................. 227

Some Implications, Conclusions, and Speculations From the Theory ............... 227

Two Primary Concluding Implications ............................................................. 238

Possibilities For Future Work ........................................................................... 239

ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY ..................................................... 242

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FOREWORD

So that was it! I felt an enormous, an indescribable relief. Instead of the expected
damnation, grace had come upon me, and with it an unutterable bliss such as I had
never known. I wept for happiness and gratitude. The wisdom and goodness of God
had been revealed to me now that I had yielded to His inexorable command. It was as
though I had experienced an illumination. A great many things I had not previously
understood became clear to me. That was what my father [a parson] had not
understood, I thought, he had failed to experience the will of God, had opposed it for
the best reasons and out of the deepest faith. And that was why he had never
experienced the miracle of grace which heals all and makes all comprehensible. He
had taken the Bible’s commandments as his guide; he believed in God as the Bible
prescribed and as his forefathers had taught him. But he did not know the immediate
living God who stands, omnipotent and free, above His Bible and His Church, who calls
upon man to partake of His freedom, and can force him to renounce his own views and
convictions in order to fulfill without reserve the command of God. In His trial of human
courage God refuses to abide by traditions, no matter how sacred. In His omnipotence
He will see to it that nothing really evil comes of such tests of courage. If one fulfills the
will of God one can be sure of going the right way.

Carl Gustav Jung autobiography, Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1961 p. 40)

Suma de la perfección The Sum of Perfection

Olvido de lo criado, Forgetfulness of created things,

memoria del Criador, remembrance of the Creator,
atención a lo interior, attention turned toward inward things,
y estarse amando al Amado. and loving the Beloved.

St. John of the Cross (John CW p. 73 The Poetry)

“The Sum of Perfection. A small summary of John’s teaching” (John CW p. 43 Kieran

Kavanaugh, OCD, Introduction to The Poetry).
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

God
Ishwara – Creator of All Universes
Abba – Father
Durga – Divine Mother

Alláh-u-Abhà – God the Most Glorious

Unkulunkulu – Great God

Guru
Paramahansa Yogananda

PhD Committee
Dr. Robert L. Moore, Chair
Rev. Dr. George F. Cairns
Fr. Dr. Kevin G. Culligan, OCD (Order of Carmelites Discalced)

Registrar and Director of Studies

Mrs. Cheryl W. Miller
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INTRODUCTION: PURPOSE, METHODOLOGY, AND SURVEY

Identifying himself with a shallow ego, man takes for granted that
it is he who thinks, wills, feels, digests meals, and keeps himself alive,
never admitting through reflection (only a little would suffice) that in his
ordinary life he is naught but a puppet of past actions (karma) and of
Nature or environment. Each man’s intellectual reactions, feelings,
moods, and habits are merely effects of past causes, whether of this or a
prior life. Lofty above such influences, however, is his regal soul. Spurning
the transitory truths and freedoms, the…yogi passes beyond all
disillusionment into his unfettered Being. The world’s scriptures declare
man to be not a corruptible body but a living soul…
The true yogi, withholding his thoughts, will, and feelings from false
identification with bodily desires, uniting his mind with superconscious
forces in the spinal shrines, thus lives in the world as God hath planned;
he is impelled neither by impulses from the past nor by fresh motivations
of human witlessness. Receiving fulfillment of his Supreme Desire, he is
safe in the final haven of inexhaustibly blissful Spirit….
…The yogi casts his human longings into a monotheistic bonfire
consecrated to the unparalleled God. This is indeed the true yogic fire
ceremony, in which all past and present desires are fuel consumed by love
divine. The Ultimate Flame receives the sacrifice of all human madness,
and man is pure of dross. His metaphorical bones stripped of all desirous
flesh, his karmic skeleton bleached by the antiseptic sun of wisdom,
inoffensive before man and Maker, he is clean at last.

Paramahansa Yogananda, Autobiography of a Yogi (1946 pp. 243-4)

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Purpose

Précis: The purpose of this dissertation is to understand the process

of spiritual transformation. The crux of the spiritual process is spiritual
transformation, so this dissertation focuses on understanding the process
of spiritual transformation to formulate a psychological theory and to
contribute to the development of therapeutic approaches to the spiritual
well being of the person.

The purpose of this dissertation is to understand the process of spiritual

transformation. Understanding the process of spiritual transformation is necessary in
order to develop therapeutic approaches to facilitate the process in persons, and to
understand the place this process has psychologically and theologically in the life of
the person. The process of spiritual transformation has traditionally been theologically
and pastorally understood to be part of spiritual growth, but what the process is and
how it works psychologically has not been understood in a manner specific enough to
approach therapeutically. Psychology traditionally has great breadth and depth of
therapeutic understandings of many dimensions of the person, including the
personality, the mind, and most recently, the emotions, but has lacked both
acknowledgement and understanding of the spiritual dimension of the person.
The first step toward understanding how to approach spiritual process
therapeutically is to understand spiritual process itself. The crux of spiritual process is
spiritual transformation, so this dissertation focuses on understanding the process of
spiritual transformation. This dissertation seeks to understand this process of spiritual
transformation in the individual, and to formulate a psychological theory to facilitate
this process. The ultimate purpose of this work is to contribute to the development of
therapeutic approaches to the spiritual well being of the person.
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Methodology

The primary methodology to achieve the purpose of this dissertation is

comparative study, or the comparative method. "Comparative method" is the primary
method used by Rudolf D'Souza in The Bhagavadgita1 and St. John of the Cross (1996
pp. 8-14). D'Souza cites the following definition (p. 10) of this method by M.
Dhavamony in History of Religions (see D'Souza Bibliography p. 450), and D'Souza

predicates his comparative methodology on this definition:

Generally speaking, comparative method is the study of different types

of groups of phenomena in order to determine analytically the factors that lead
to similarities and differences in specific patterns of behavior...This method
involves the procedures that, while clarifying the resemblances and differences
displayed by the phenomena, elicit and classify not only causal factors in the
emergences and developments of such phenomena but also patterns of
interrelation within and between such phenomena.

Comparative method, as employed by D'Souza, provides the primary referential

framework for comparative method as employed in this dissertation. D'Souza, in the
interest of furthering interreligious dialogue "animated by the spirit of Vatican II" (p.
8), compares Christian and Hindu doctrine by comparing the texts of St. John of the
Cross from Christian tradition with The Bhagavadgita scripture from Hindu tradition.

1
Most often in the West the spelling is Bhagavad-Gita but for consistency of reference to
D'Souza's work regarding the Gita we will use his spelling. The title is most comprehensively
translated as "Song of the Lord". A Hindu would say "Bhagavan Krishna", as a Christian
would say "Lord Jesus". The Gita tells the story of Bhagavan Krishna, considered to be the
incarnation of Divine Love, and His disciple Arjuna. In a similar way the Biblical Gospels tell
stories of Lord Jesus and His disciples. “The central message of the Gita is that man may win
emancipation through love for God, wisdom, and performance of right actions in a spirit of
nonattachment” (Yogananda 1946 p. 469).
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Because of the scope and complexity of the task of comparing two entire religious
traditions, he has selected only the doctrine of spiritual dynamism as the point of
comparison. D'Souza looks at the phenomenology of "the dynamism of spiritual
growth" both in the Bhagavadgita and in the writings of St. John of the Cross and then
compares how the selected texts from the two traditions regard that phenomenology.
D'Souza's goal in his comparative study is to provide a scientific study of the whole
dynamism of spiritual growth (p. 14). His resulting theory is that the doctrine of

dynamism in one religion can be informed and expanded by the doctrine in another
religion.
The comparative method employed by D'Souza is ideally suited to be the
primary methodology for this dissertation, because the primary task of both projects is
to compare major traditions with the purpose of gaining a more comprehensive
understanding of each, of the relationship of the doctrines of each to the other, and a
more whole understanding of the phenomenology within the doctrines, as informed by
both traditions. D'Souza compares Christianity and Hinduism, and this dissertation
compares psychology and theology. D'Souza selects the texts of St. John of the Cross
as representative of a Christian doctrine with The Bhagavadgita as representative of a
Hindu doctrine. This dissertation selects Carl Jung as representative of a major
psychological perspective, and St. John of the Cross as representative of a major
theological perspective. D'Souza selects one phenomenology within the doctrines - that
of spiritual dynamism - to be the point of comparison. This dissertation selects the
phenomenology of spiritual transformation as described by Jung and St. John to be the
point of comparison.
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The other comparative method which will provide a referential framework for
this dissertation is the method used by Kevin Culligan (1979 pp. vi-viii and 11-16) in
his comparison of the psychotherapy of psychologist Carl Rogers with the tradition of
spiritual direction as seen in St. John of the Cross. Culligan's primary methodological
structure is exploratory research design, within which he analyzes selected texts from
both Rogers and St. John. He then synthesizes the results of his textual analysis into a
comprehensive but preliminary theoretical model of spiritual direction based on both

thinkers. His comparative method in the process of his exploratory research design is
relevant to the comparative method in this dissertation. Of equal relevance is his
interdisciplinary comparison of the psychology of Rogers and the theology of St. John
using spiritual direction as the point of comparison. Culligan has selected the texts of
St. John to represent and explicate the tradition of spiritual direction, which he
compares to Rogers' theory of psychotherapy. He then demonstrates how Rogers'
contemporary psychotherapy can inform the extant tradition of spiritual direction
without diminishing its character as a pastoral or spiritual ministry in the Christian
Church. Culligan's methodology is thus relevant to this dissertation, which attempts to
demonstrate how the modern aspects of Jungian psychology can also inform and
expand St. John's spiritual theology.
D'Souza provides primarily a comparative study design as applied to a selected
doctrine from two different religions. This same design may also be used to compare a
central theme in two different bodies of knowledge such as theology and psychology.
Culligan provides a comparative study design for an interdisciplinary comparison of
theology and psychology. The primary methodological design, then, for this
dissertation is comparative method, according to the definition cited by D'Souza, and
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predicated on the examples of comparative method employed by D'Souza and

Culligan.2

Step One - The Territory of Selected Texts

The first step in employing this primary comparative method is to cull out the
territory for comparison, and in so doing to delimit the scope of comparison. Carl Jung

is the psychology figure to be examined, and St. John of the Cross is the theology
figure to be examined. Carl Jung is the most widely regarded psychologist known for
dealing with the spiritual and theological phenomenological dimensions of the person.
St. John is a Doctor of the Church in Catholic theological tradition, known as well for
what today we would call his psychological understandings of the person due to his
highly-developed skills in the tradition of spiritual direction. From the corpus of each
thinker, texts are selected which focus on the point of comparison, spiritual
transformation. In the writings of Carl Jung this is his theory of individuation, and in the
writings of St. John it is his concept of the dark night in spiritual development, as found
primarily in his work, The Dark Night (of the soul).
Texts are selected using the following criteria:

• Greatest specificity of content regarding the phenomena in the process of

spiritual transformation in the individual person

2
Curricula vitae for D'Souza and Culligan are included in bibliographic annotation of cited
primary works.
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• Greatest depth and cohesion of the topic of spiritual transformation in the

text, that is, a cohesive body of work with the most comprehensive and
deepest explication of the thinker's view of the transformation process
• Most representative text of the thinker's work and position on this topic

For Jung, the selected text(s) are his writings on his theory of individuation, which
is his comprehensive theory of the process of spiritual transformation across the life

cycle of the individual. A primary work on individuation by Jolande Jacobi, approved

by Jung, is included in this selection. In the corpus of St. John, the most cohesive,
specific, and comprehensive text dealing with the personal transformation process is
found in his work, The Dark Night. The dark night is John's metaphor for the phase in
which spiritual transformation occurs. The selected texts are the focal point of the
comparative study, as the most comprehensive and detailed discussion –
psychologically for Jung and theologically for John – of the process of spiritual
transformation.

Step Two - Critical Analysis of Texts of Each Thinker

The next step is to critically analyze the selected texts on spiritual transformation
– Jung's theory of individuation and the spiritual transformation that occurs in John's
dark night – to identify and understand what each thinker describes as the process of
psychological and spiritual transformation. Critical analysis will be used in this
sequence of levels.
 15

• Analysis of the complete selected text to identify the overall understanding of the
thinker regarding spiritual transformation
• Within the overall understanding the text will be further analyzed to yield specific
elements which make up the overall understanding
• Further analysis of specific elements will yield clear understanding of each
specific element

From this critical textual analysis of the selected texts of both thinkers we will
discover what each thinks in regard to spiritual transformation in the selected texts both
in the overall, including all of the elements of the overall understanding, and
specifically, with specific understanding of each element. This analysis enables us to
compare each thinker on the subject of spiritual transformation at the overall
conceptual level, and in the breakdown of its elements with specificity at the elemental
level, to observe the similarities and differences present between the two thinkers at
each level.

Step Three - Comparison of Analyses of the Texts for an Integrated

Understanding

Comparison of the analyses of the texts of two thinkers is the third step in the
comparative methodological design. The comparison will be done in three parts.

1. Critical textual analysis having just been done will set forth overall
understanding and elucidate the specifics of each thinker regarding the
phenomenon of spiritual transformation.
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2. Comparison of the two thinkers to identify their similarities and differences of

thought at the conceptual level of overall understanding and at the level of
each element, in similarities and differences. This part includes noting insights
from each thinker, which, though not directly comparable as similarities and
differences, nonetheless contribute to a deeper understanding of spiritual
transformation.
3. Integration of all three categories of elements - similarities, differences, and

supplemental, related elements - emerging from the comparison. By

systematically arranging the similarities, differences, and related insights that
come out of our comparison, a newer, fuller understanding of the
phenomenon of spiritual transformation emerges as the relational comparison
of the two thinkers is completed. A new and richer understanding of spiritual
transformation is integrated from the analysis of the selected texts of Jung
and St. John, at the overall, conceptual level and at the detailed elemental
level.

Step Four - From Integrated Understanding to Theoretical Formulation

The final step of the dissertation methodology is that the integrated

understanding provided by comparison and integration of critical textual analysis
within the comparative methodological framework is formulated into a psychological
theory of spiritual transformation based on the writings of Carl Jung and St. John of
the Cross. The two phases of the theoretical formulation will be:
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1. Discussion of the conceptual and elemental integrations performed after the

comparative critical analyses will provide a context for understanding the
newly-integrated combination of Jung's psychological and John's theological
concept of spiritual transformation into one richer and fuller integrated
concept.
2. Suggest a theory from this integrated concept, which describes a
psychological approach to the newly integrated concept of spiritual

transformation. This can then be the basis for developing a future theoretical
model of spiritual transformation to guide further research on the subject and
therapeutic interventions for pastoral and psychological work with
individuals. This theoretical model would operationally define how the
process works, how research of the process can be done, how therapeutic
approach to the process can be made, and how interventions can be made
into the process of spiritual transformation in the person.

Subsequent to the dissertation, future research can be done based on the theory
of the integrated understanding of spiritual transformation provided by the dissertation.
The theory can then be reformulated as a model and tested as the therapeutic approach
is developed in research and practice. This dissertation intends to provide a
newly-integrated understanding of spiritual transformation as a psychological theory of
spiritual transformation, and as such it can suggest a theoretical, conceptual model to
provide a foundation for future research and therapeutic practice.
This dissertation, then, through comparative study, brings into analysis Jung's
psychological views of spiritual transformation across the life cycle, and St. John's
 18

theological views of spiritual transformation in the lived experience of persons. Their

two different perspectives on human spiritual development and its context and effect
on lived experience are integrated into a greater conceptual or theoretical whole,
which will foster greater understanding of spiritual transformation for both psychology
and theology. As a study in integral psychological and theological understanding of,
and approach to, human spiritual transformation, it is hoped that this dissertation can
inform and evolve both psychotherapeutic and pastoral endeavor. It is also hoped that

this will serve as a springboard for future development in the area of understanding
and therapeutically addressing human spiritual transformation.

Citation Formats

As an interdisciplinary work there are multiple traditions of citation of authors

being cited in this dissertation. It is therefore necessary to set forth the citation formats
used in this work for clarity, consistency, convenience, and brevity. Citations of sources
are formatted as follows, with accompanying explanations.

• (Jung CW Vol. 12 par. 335)

o For Carl Jung the Volume number of his Collected Works is cited
with the paragraph number. This is the only citation in which
paragraph numbers and not page numbers are used because
paragraph numbers are consistent from edition to edition of Jung’s
CW whereas page numbers are not.
 19

o This is the only citation format that uses “par.” to indicate

“paragraph”. All other citations use “p.” or “pp.” to indicate
“page/s”.
• (John CW p. 435)
o For St. John the Collected Works are in one volume, and the page
number or numbers are cited.
• (D’Souza 1996 p. 212)

o For all other authors American Psychological Association format of

(author – year of publication – page number/s) is used, with which
the Chicago Manual of Style concurs.
o Those citations of Jung from works either in separate book form or
not included in his Collected Works, such as his autobiography,
are cited in this format, for example (Jung 1961 p. 40).
• D’Souza concludes (1996 p. 212)
o Where one author is discussed at some length, for example
throughout a paragraph or section the citation in the discussion will
include year of publication and page number/s.
• D’Souza then concludes (p. 212)
o Where one publication of one author is discussed at some length
then the page number/s is cited.

It must also be noted here that there are occasions of quotations of authors, for
example Jacobi and Wulff citing Jung, and Blommenstijn citing John, in which the
author cites Jung or John from an indeterminable edition or from a stated edition which
 20

cannot be translated into contemporary editions location, so it was not possible to

translate that citation into the format of this dissertation. Where that has been the case
the untranslatable format of citation has been left just as the author has cited. Such
occasional citations have been left in their quoted forms.

Survey

To this point in this introduction, we have reviewed the purpose of the

dissertation, and its methodology. Now we survey the work itself. Following this
introduction is a list of operational definitions as underpinnings for key concepts. The
dissertation itself is in three parts, with each part consisting of two chapters. Part One
describes the two thinkers. Part Two discusses the comparison of the two thinkers.
Part Three describes the integration of the comparison, the psychological theory of
spiritual transformation that arises from the comparison, and the implications of this
theory for developing a theoretical model that can guide future research and
therapeutic practice.
Part One, describing the thinkers, begins with Chapter One, Carl Jung:
Individuation. In Chapter One we review Carl Jung and his theory of individuation.

Within the huge corpus of Carl Jung his primary theory of individuation will provide
the psychological framework for understanding his model of the process of the human
psyche as it regards spirituality and as it processes spiritual and religious awareness
and experience. Individuation describes the psychological maturation process as the
ego and self-integration of spiritual awareness. Jung was clear that he was a
phenomenologist, looking scientifically at the phenomenology of spirituality in
 21

psychological process. This chapter examines Jung's phenomenological view of the

psychology of spiritual transformation across the life cycle.
In Chapter Two, St. John: The Dark Night, we examine the nature of the
theological and spiritual process of psychological levels of awareness and
experiencing in the writings of St. John of the Cross. It is this process St. John calls
transformation, which he details as purgation of the intellect, the will, and the memory.
St. John's theological framework sets forth his understanding of the procedure of the
individual human soul as it matures into union with God through spiritual
transformation. This process he refers to as, and is described in his work of the same
name, The Dark Night. Although in the British translation of St. John by E. Allison Peers
the title is expanded to the more familiar contemporary referent, The Dark Night of the
Soul, St. John's original name for the time of this transformation is The Dark Night.
Other works in the corpus of St. John also describe the process, but the focus of this
dissertation is in The Dark Night as the time and way in which transformation occurs.
In Part Two we compare the two thinkers. In Chapter Three, Jungian Depth
Psychological Framework for Spirituality, we look at Jungian individuation as a depth

psychological framework of the life cycle in which spiritual transformation occurs. We

view the transformation process as a psychological phenomenon. In Chapter Four,
St. John's Spiritual Theology Enhancing Jungian Psychological Framework, the dark

night as both episodic and evolutionary is seen as the place within the life cycle wherein
spiritual transformation occurs. The spiritual transformation, then, is the impetus for
spiritual growth, which is seen as constituent to psychological growth and
transformation over the life cycle.
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Part Three, integrating the two thinkers, begins with Chapter Five, Toward A
Psychological Theory Based on an Integration of Jung's Individuation and St. John's

Dark Night. In Chapter Five we propose an integrated psychological theory of spiritual

transformation, seeing the Jungian psychological framework for St. John's processes.
Jung's psychological framework provides context for St. John's process of the dark
night, and the dark night is seen as the spiritual process that occurs within the
psychological framework that yields the process of spiritual transformation. By
combining the thinkers and by looking at the spiritual transformation process from both
psychological and theological perspective, we gain a fuller, integrated view of the
process.
The final section is Afterword: Implications, Conclusions, And Recommendations
From The Theory For Future Therapeutic Practice And Research. In this Afterword some

implications, conclusions, and speculations from the theory are discussed, and two
primary concluding implications are described. Possibilities for future work are listed,
and one research in particular is described, in which investigation of the inner
landscape of the person in the psychospiritual transformation process is proposed. It is
noted that theories for research and models for testing can be created for each of these
areas of future research, and that work in all of these areas can yield findings significant
to the development of the fields of psychology, theology, and religion, for the individual
person, and for collective humanity.
 23

Response to Feminist, Social, and Political Critique of the Individual

Approach to Human Spirituality

In the introduction to her book Gaia & God: An Ecofeminist Theology of Earth
Healing (1992), Rosemary Radford Ruether says, “If dominating and destructive
relations to the earth are interrelated with gender, class, and racial domination, then

a healed relation to the earth cannot come about simply through technological ‘fixes.’
It demands a social reordering to bring about just and loving interrelationship between
men and women, between races and nations, between groups presently stratified into
social classes, manifest in great disparities of access to the means of life. In short, it
demands that we must speak of eco-justice, and not simply of domination of the earth
as though that happened unrelated to social domination” (pp. 2-3). She focuses on
the social, institutional, collective dimensions of these negative relations, and she
advocates “a social reordering” to heal these relationships.
Ruether registers a concern, along with other feminists and social and
institutional critics, about approaching healed relations in an individualized, internal

way. She says,

A healed relation to each other and to the earth then calls for a new
consciousness, a new symbolic culture and spirituality. We need to transform our
inner psyches and the way we symbolize the interrelations of men and women,
humans and earth, humans and the divine, the divine and the earth. Ecological
healing is a theological and psychic-spiritual process. Needless to say, spirituality
or new consciousness will not transform deeply materialized relations of
domination by themselves. We must be wary of new forms of privatized
intrapsychic activity, divorced from social systems of power. Rather we must see
the work of eco-justice and the work of spirituality as interrelated, the inner and
outer aspects of one process of conversion and transformation (p. 4).
 24

As a practical theologian she argues powerfully for collective social

responsibility and the essential need for activity by and in society to cure collective
social ills such as positive gender and race relations and deep ecological healing. But
she trivializes the role which individual spirituality plays in the conscious awareness of
individuals, which is the precursor to decision-making and activity of the individual in
the world. Rather than being “wary of new forms of privatized intrapsychic activity”,
this dissertation argues that it is in fact and in practice an increased consciousness of

private, or individual, intrapsychic, or spiritual, activity which leads to the change in

consciousness from negative and destructive social domination to positive, healed
relations.
The healing process begins within. The change of consciousness for which
Ruether argues begins within, in the process of individual – intrapsychic and
intrapersonal – spiritual transformation. Without inner spiritual transformation and its
concomitant change of consciousness the individual in society is not able to participate
in the social transformation for which Ruether also argues. We will see in St. John’s
terms that the “right ordering” of God-relationality first as the context within which
human relationality occurs is actually the social reordering which Ruether proposes as
the righted relationships between God, humans, and earth. It is the intrapsychic activity
that enables the change of individual consciousness that leads to the outer activity of
social change of consciousness.
Ruether makes a very critical point in her statement that “We must be wary of
new forms of privatized intrapsychic activity, divorced from social systems of power.”
She raises the point that internal, individual activity must be related to external, social
activity so that society and institutions are positively transformed and healed, and that
 25

injustices and oppressions can be eliminated. Practical theology is, as we can clearly
see, one primary area of the totality of her expertise, and it is on this point that practical
theology, liberation theology, and contemporary activist theologies hinge. This
dissertation does not touch on this relationship between the inner, individual
transformation and external activism, because it is beyond the scope of the project of
understanding the internal process of spiritual transformation. The dissertation does,
however, make the point that inner spiritual transformation results in a healed self,

healed relations, and improved social context and participation, and it is one of the
reasons for the importance for understanding the transformative process. In this way
“privatized intrapsychic activity” in actuality cannot be “divorced from social systems
of power” because the transformation of the individual at the spiritual level yields
transformed behavior of the individual in society.
Ruether continues by saying,

We need a vision of a source of life that is ‘yet more’ than what presently
exists, continually bringing forth both new life and new visions of how life should
be more just and more caring. The human capacity for ethical reason is not
rootless in the universe, but expresses this deeper source of life ‘beyond’ the
biological. Consciousness and altruistic care are qualities that have some
reflection in other animals, and indeed are often too poorly developed in our
own species. To believe in divine being means to believe that those
qualities in ourselves are rooted in and respond to the life power
from which the universe itself arises (p. 5, bold Kay).

She advocates a new vision and development of consciousness and altruistic

care in social relations and institutions, and argues that this cannot be divorced from
individual psychic process. This dissertation advocates a new individual vision based
on and effected by the process of inner spiritual transformation, which re-orders and
 26

right-orders personal motives and activities which will manifest in society as being
rooted in the Divine. The process of spiritual transformation first heals and changes
consciousness of the individual person, who then in the process of social and relational
participation externally heals and changes consciousness of society and its institutions.
On the dynamics of the individual and of the relationship of the individual to
society Carl Gustav Jung said,

The individual is determined on the one hand by the principle of

uniqueness and distinctiveness, and on the other by the society to which he
belongs. He is an indispensable link in the social structure (Jung CW Vol. 7 par.
519).

The individual is precisely that which can never be merged with the
collective and is never identical with it (Jung CW Vol. 7 par. 485).

The larger a community is, and the more the sum total of collective factors
peculiar to every large community rests on conservative prejudices detrimental
to individuality, the more will the individual be morally and spiritually crushed,
and, as a result, the one source of moral and spiritual progress for
society is choked up (Jung CW Vol. 7 par. 240, bold Kay).

The individual will never find the real justification for his existence and his
own spiritual and moral autonomy anywhere except in an extramundane
principle capable of relativizing the overpowering influence of external
factors…For this he needs the evidence of inner, transcendent experience which
alone can protect him from the otherwise inevitable submersion in the mass (Jung
CW Vol. 10 par. 511).

The critical notion is that of the individual as, in Jung’s words, “the one source
of moral and spiritual progress for society”. Jung’s view of the primacy of the individual
and the importance of the individuation process he puts succinctly when he says,
“Resistance to the organized mass can be effected only by the man who is as well
 27

organized in his individuality as the mass itself” (Jung CW Vol. 10 par. 540, italics

Jung).
Jung’s theory of individuation, or the development of the individual across the
life cycle, describes how the individual first grows in realization and actualization of
self, then in participation in the collective, and then in relation to the transcendent. St.
John’s Dark Night describes the process by which the individual realizes that when
one’s priorities are wrongly ordered one suffers personally and wrongs collectively,
and that healing and wholeness occur when one right-orders one’s priorities to put first
the spiritual union with God through love. This dissertation describes how these
psychological and theological processes occur in the individual, how one’s priorities
become right-ordered. This dissertation agrees with Ruether that the right-ordered
individual must then set about reordering society. Ruether’s insistence on social
transformation by individuals highlights the need to understand the process of
individual spiritual transformation – the goal of this dissertation – in order to accomplish
social transformation.
Jung expresses his view of individual and social transformation in the final
textual volume of his Collected Works, in a “miscellaneous writing” on The Symbolic
Life (Jung CW Vol. 18 pars. 1378-83, italics Jung).

If the whole is to change, the individual must change himself. Goodness

is an individual gift and an individual acquisition…acquired only by the
individual as his own achievement. No masses can do it for him. But evil needs
masses for its genesis and continued existence. The mastermen of the SS3 are all,
when segregated each by himself, indescribably small and ugly. But the good

3
“SS” refers to the Nazi special police force during WWII, German Schutzstaffel ‘defence
squadron’ (Oxford 2000 p. 1395). Jung was writing this in Europe after WWII.
 28

man shines like a jewel that was lost in the Sahara…Only with the individual can
anything be done….
The individual was directly appealed to in early Christian time, and this
appeal has continued down through the centuries in the ecclesiastical cure of
souls…Without a personal appeal there is no personal influence, which alone
can change the attitude of the individual for the better…
What we need are a few illuminating truths, but no articles of faith. Where
an intelligible faith works, it finds in faith a willing ally; for faith has always
helped when thinking and understanding could not quite make the grade.
Understanding is never the handmaiden of faith – on the contrary, faith
completes understanding…The people seek, despite everything, to understand.

This writing also serves to introduce the way in which the faith of St. John of the
Cross’ Dark Night completes the psychological understanding of Jungian individuation.

WORKING DEFINITIONS

Working definitions are understood to do primarily two things: 1, to define

territory referred to by the term, to delimit the scope of the territory to which the term
refers, and to be clear as to exactly what the term represents and what is meant by the
term when it is used; 2, to be explicit about what occurs in that territory, whether that
be disclosure of contents or description of process. This does two things: unites all
readers and writer in clarity of understanding of what is being referred to in discussion,
and states specifically what the writer intends to deal with and what is explicitly left
out. These terms must be delimited and clarified, then used within the previous
methodology I have outlined. That is, that the procedure has been outlined in the
methodology, and it is that procedure which I will be applying to the following terms.
 29

Psychology and theology are discussed in terms of process and contents, which
are primary working referents in phenomenological analysis. Process refers to the way
in which each of the two fields operates or proceeds, that is, the procedure which is
endemic to the field. Content refers to the material that is being processed. For
example, psychologically we process, that is, submit to psychological procedure,
intellectual, emotional, psychic, physiologically influenced contents, and, for purposes
of this dissertation, spiritual contents. In the same way, we have a theological or

spiritual process for the same psychological contents.

This dissertation discusses the process of "spiritual transformation", within which,
as a term, is contained both the process of "transformation" and the delimited contents
of the transformational process being examined as "spiritual" contents, or the material
which is undergoing the process of "transformation". Because the goal of the
dissertation is to arrive at a newer, fuller, more psychologically and theologically
integrated understanding of "spiritual transformation" we must examine and will state
what we mean when we use all three terms in this project. The need for a working
definition of "spiritual transformation" will be addressed as integral to the consideration
of understanding the process of transformation itself. All three of these terms; spiritual,
transformation, and spiritual transformation, are primary to the project, and must be
defined.
In addition, the subsequent goal of the dissertation is to make progress toward
formulation of a psychological theory of spiritual transformation, so a clear
understanding of "psychological theory" must also be set forth as the underpinning
which will enable completion of the end goal of the project. Here in this term as well
we have aspects of both process and content, with the term "theory" being a process
 30

or structure, and "psychological" referring to the contents of the structure of the

"theory". And it is here that we finalize our understanding of the vantage point of the
project, that of shedding "psychological" light through the vehicle of the process of
"theory" construction, that we strive in the end to understand "spiritual transformation".
These two terms, "psychological" and "theory", each term in this project delimiting a
territory of thought, taken together form another term which is primary to the project
and so must also be defined.

“Spirituality" as a term is also critically in need of definition, because its

distinction from religion and religiosity must be made as part of how we define the
"spiritual" contents of the "transformation" process we are seeking to understand. It is
also primary to understanding the focus of the dissertation.
The following terms, then, as integral to the understanding of spiritual
transformation itself, are in need of working definition for conceptual understanding,
so must be specified, delimited, and defined.

• Spirituality
• Spiritual
• Transformation
• Spiritual transformation
• Psychological theory
• Psychological model

It should be noted that traditional theology definitions are almost exclusively

Christian, and mostly Catholic, and doctrinally oriented. And, traditional psychology
 31

definitions are most often technical terms within the field of psychology, such as the
particularities of specific psychological theories, rather than theory as employed by the
entire field itself. Accordingly, definitions for this dissertation have been first broadened
from traditional discipline definitions, and then narrowed to focus on our topic of
spiritual transformation and its phenomenology.
Definitions are not only “working” in the sense of their activity in this dissertation,
but are also working in the sense of the necessity of describing transformational

phenomenological activity. Definitions are interdisciplinary, in the sense of bridging

psychology and theology, but also in the sense of bridging the sciences and the social
sciences, for example, using the scientific understanding of theory applied to
psychology as social science. Where a term is used in the dissertation and by a
particular thinker, and the definitions do not exactly agree, such as spiritual used in
the dissertation and “spiritual” used in a St. John quotation, the dissertation refers to
the meaning here in working definitions for the dissertation. Many of these terms are
defined many different ways by different sources, but all dissertation references to these
terms, unless quoted by another specific source, employ these working definitions.
These working definitions, in addition to delimiting specific territory, give us common
ground from which to apprehend our approach to spiritual transformation.

Definitions

This section presents each term and its working definition for this dissertation in
bold. The regular text that follows the definition is an explanation of the derivation of
the dissertation definition. Definitions have been synthesized from Oxford dictionary
 32

foundational definitions that are relevant to the topic of spiritual transformation which
are reformed according to Jung, St. John, and authors cited in the dissertation.

Spirituality

Spirituality: (noun) Awareness of the movement of the Spirit

of God and of the Spirit in persons as spirit; the life of persons
according to Spirit; a leading and guiding by spirit alone;
transformation into, and life lived in, awareness of indwelling
spirit; the dynamic element of God’s Spirit in humankind;
primacy of spirit in dynamics of personal life; implication of
relationship between spirit in persons and Spirit of God, in
Christian terms that of the person of the image of God; an
indefinite process of transformation.

Spirituality is a noun, and is a way of being, a state, or a process. D’Souza

(1996 pp. 22-23) defines spirituality by citing Indian Theologian D.S. Amalorpavadass’
definition. “Spirituality is primarily the SPIRIT. It is the MOVEMENT of the Spirit and his
work. It is a movement in and towards total freedom…It is a life of the Spirit in the

people, a life according to the Spirit. It is a life of those who are imbued and charged
with the Spirit, possessed and permeated by him, and led and guided by the Spirit

alone. It is a life that is lived in the awareness of the indwelling Spirit and all-pervading
Spirit.” D’Souza says “this definition makes it clear that the Spirit of God is active and
operative in the field of [spirituality. Amalorpavadass] makes reference also to
movement, emphasizing the dynamic element of the Spirit of God…”(p. 23).
Amalorpavadass refers to “(Atman – Brahman)” (p. 23) which in Hindu tradition
refers to the relationship between the individualized spirit or soul (atman) and God’s
spirit or universal soul (Brahman). Gandhi was called the Mahatma because maha
 33

(great) and atman (soul) in contraction yield mahatma, or great soul. D’Souza notes
that “many spiritual theologians” use the word spirituality as “an alternative
expression of <<Spiritual Theology>>”, that spirituality includes theology but is more
experiential because it is directly related to the dynamics of life, and that “its ultimate
goal is spiritual realization or God-realisation…[spirituality] is a process in which
man is no longer an independent form that can control his own life…but he is dependent
on God and he incessantly seeks after the Divine, because God created man in His
own image” (pp. 23-24). D’Souza concludes his definition by citing that in “a document
published by the Titus Brandsma Institute, Spiritualiteit en Mystiek in Dynamisch-
Structureel Perspectief, it is stated that <<Spirituality is dynamic inasmuch as it is an
incessant transformation process that starts from the first origin of mental awareness
and continues to the highest reaches of mystical union […] Any research method in the
field of spirituality should keep in mind this indefinite process of transformation>>” (p.
24). We will use this definition of spirituality as a process, as dynamic in the life, as
the relationship of individual spirit to God, and as a process of transformation, which
gives us not only a working definition of spirituality but also points us directly toward
our goal of understanding spiritual transformation. As a Carmelite and one of our
literary sources, D’Souza’s understanding of this term in working with St. John serves
our purpose in working with St. John.

Spiritual

Spiritual: (adjective) Describes or refers to human spirituality

and spiritual existence, as distinguished from physical or
material existence.
 34

Given our definition of spirituality, this definition of its adjectival form simply
shows that the term refers to the territory of spirituality. This is a core definition, from
Oxford dictionary through the thinkers discussed and authors cited in this dissertation,
but each has his/her own nuanced understanding of the spirit and therefore of what is
spiritual. For St. John, the spirit is part of the soul, along with its other part of the senses,
so the Dark Night for John occurs to the totality of the soul, with one part sensory and
the other part spiritual, as our definition says, in contrast to the material. Spirit for John
is “the higher, superior, or interior part of the soul in contradistinction to the sensory
part…is the part that communes with God…pure spirit refers to what has no ties to the
material” (John CW p. 775). Spiritual, then, refers to this. Harvey says that “pneuma
is the Greek word most frequently translated in English as ‘spirit’, and is distinguished
from “(soma=embodied existence; psyche=human vitality; nous=”mind”;
kardia=”heart”) to indicate the distinctive existence of man” as spiritual. Jung does not
often use the term spiritual, but he describes the territory as he constructs an argument
about human connection with God.

It would be blasphemy to assert that God can manifest Himself everywhere save
only in the human soul. Indeed the very intimacy of the relationship between
God and the soul automatically precludes any devaluation of the latter. It would
be going perhaps too far to speak of an affinity; but at all events the soul must
contain in itself the faculty of relation to God, i.e., a correspondence, otherwise
a connection could never come about. This correspondence is, in psychological
terms, the archetype of the God-image…”(Jung CW Vol. 12 par. 11).

What Jung calls “a correspondence” and an “archetype”, is spiritual. Sharp, in giving

Jung’s distinction of spirit, says, “Jung was careful to distinguish between spirit as a
psychological concept and its traditional use in religion (Sharp 1991 p. 127). And Jung
 35

says, “From the psychological point of view, the phenomenon of spirit, like every
autonomous complex, appears as an intention of the unconscious superior to, or at
least on a par with, intentions of the ego. If we are to do justice to the essence of the
thing we call spirit, we should really speak of a ‘higher’ consciousness rather than of
the unconscious (Jung CW Vol. 8 par. 643). “The common modern idea of spirit ill
accords with the Christian view, which regards it as the summum bonum, as God
himself. To be sure, there is also the idea of an evil spirit. But the modern idea cannot
be equated with that either, since for us spirit is not necessarily evil; we would have to
call it morally indifferent or neutral” (Jung CW Vol. 9i par. 394). In Jung’s terms, it is
to this we refer with our adjective spiritual. D’Souza says, “The term Spiritual
explains, clarifies and elaborates on its substantive form Spirit” (D’Souza 1996 p. 21,
bold Kay).
Transformation

Transformation: (noun) A change or alteration from one state

or way of being to another; an act or function of change;
literally, the activity of changing form.

This term is very clear in its core meaning, as a change from one form of
something to another. What differs in cited sources is their view of what the change is.
For John transformation is a term that refers to a change in the soul as it changes in
God, in the direction of becoming united with God, a person and life as altered into
God, as in the life of Christ. Kavanaugh and Rodriguez (John CW p. 776 glossary)
summarize John’s understandings of transformation as threefold:
 36

1. A term for union, it implies a change in form by which a soul receives a new
form, God’s likeness in its being and activity, while remaining different from God
in its nature.
2. It is the human person who is transformed in God, and not vice versa.
3. The life of one transformed is Christ’s life.

The International Dictionary of Psychology (1996) says that in Psychoanalysis,

transformation is “the alteration of a repressed wish to a form in which it may enter

consciousness”. That there is a fundamental change is universal in the term
transformation.

Spiritual transformation

Spiritual transformation: Spiritual (adjective) + transformation

(noun) = (noun) Spiritual transformation; a change in human
spirituality from one way of understanding or state of
existence to another; an alteration of spirit in relation to
material; the activity of change of the life of the spirit

To our core definition of transformation we add our definition of spiritual,

and understand that we are looking at the process of change in the spiritual aspects of
human identity, life, and experience. Any part of the nature of the spirit in human life
can be changed into a different form or way of being in the process of spiritual
transformation. It is a noun, and is an activity, a process, a change or alteration.
The adjective spiritual describes what kind of the noun transformation is being
referred to by the complete term spiritual transformation. For St. John, as we saw
 37

above, spiritual transformation is the alteration of the person in God and in

eventual union in God. For John human transformation is spiritual
transformation. For Jung, the process of human transformation is individuation.
As described by Edinger,

Jung puts at the center of his psychology the process of realizing oneself
as an individual, the process of individuation. In Psychological Types he defines
individuation as follows: “In general, it is the process of forming and specializing
the individual nature; in particular, it is the development of the psychological
individual as a differentiated being from the general, collective psychology.
Individuation, therefore, is a process of differentiation, having for its goal the
development of the individual personality “ (Jung cited in Edinger 1992 p. 158).

Jung views the overall process of change in the individual as individuation, so

transformation of the spiritual aspects of the individual, or the process of spiritual
transformation in the individual, for Jung, is part of individuation.

Psychological Theory

Psychological theory: Psychological (adjective) + theory (noun) =

Psychological theory (noun); a supposition or idea systematized to
explain, justify, or understand the mental, emotional and psychic
nature of the person; a systematic organization of thought or a
proposition dealing with the non-physical nature of the person or
an aspect of it; specifically within the field of psychology refers to
one particular theory of mental, emotional and psychic functioning

It must be clarified that in general when psychological theory is used it refers

to a particular theory within the field of psychology, such as Jung’s theory of
individuation, or Freud’s theory of repression. For purposes of this dissertation
 38

psychological theory is used to refer to a systematic presentation of an idea

considering the mental, emotional, and/or psychic nature of the person, looking
systematically at a theory or idea through the lens of scientific consideration at
psychology, or the non-physical aspect of being human. It refers to psychology in
general, as a field of scientific endeavor, and using theoretical formulation to examine
it. Gorsuch defines theory by saying that “A theory is never a fact; instead, a theory
is a convenient way to summarize facts so they can be grasped by our
human minds” (2000 p. 41, bold Gorsuch). Jung in his autobiography said that
“…making ‘theory’…is as much a part of me, as vital a function of mine, as eating and
drinking”, and the recorder of his autobiography, Aniela Jaffé, explains that he means
theory “in the original sense of the Greek theorein, ‘looking about the world,’ or the
German Weltanschauung” (Jaffé 1989 p. 327). The definition of psychological
theory is necessarily an integration of definitions of both terms.

Psychological Model

Psychological model: A simplified representation, a theoretical

system of generalized assumptions, a set of concepts, or a
proposed structure of explicitly but generally defined
fundamental properties, constructed in order to visualize the
system, to understand its workings, and from which
deductions and logical reasoning can be made, in regard to
mental, emotional and psychic human processes

In this definition we see that a model is constructed from theory, is simplified,

clarified, and generalized, and proposes a structure which enables us to visualize and
understand the process which the model attempts to display. A psychological model
 39

constructs and displays psychological phenomena in a theorized structure, or model,

in order to understand the workings of the phenomena and to reason logically about
the workings of the phenomena. Here a definition has to be synthesized from the two
component terms for purposes of the dissertation, as the term of “modeling” in
psychology usually refers to behavioral modeling as therapeutic intervention. What we
are after here is the understanding of the process of modeling theoretically some
observed psychological phenomenon, which in our case is the phenomenon of spiritual

transformation. We will, in our consideration of implications of the theory, see that

formulated theories can generate models for future research, testing, and therapeutic
practice.
 40

PART ONE: THE TWO THINKERS DESCRIBED

INTRODUCTION

In the dissertation Introduction we considered working definitions for some of the

key terms used in this dissertation. In order to introduce each of the three PARTS of the
dissertation we will now cite some definitions of the comparative, or integrative, process

and of the disciplines being compared, to unify us in our comparison of psychology

and theology, of Jung and John, of individuation and the dark night. For simplicity and
clarity we will use definitions established by Gorsuch (2002 pp. 6-18):

Psychology: the scientific study of human behavior in its immediate context (p. 7). [In
Chapter One we will focus this “study” on depth/analytical psychology.]
Theology: the study of God, ultimate reality, or religion, including the relationship
with people and the ethics resulting therefrom…Theology, as defined here, is not
abstracted from life itself but is always, at some point, concerned with what we
do with our lives…[it] does overlap philosophical ethics (p. 9).
Disciplinary integration: when two or more disciplines are jointly brought to bear
on the same issue so that decisions about that issue reflect the contributions of
both disciplines. The issue may be about how one discipline carries out its work
or may be a problem that more than one discipline work together to solve (p.
6).
 41

In PART ONE of this dissertation we examine the psychology of Carl Jung and
his theory of individuation in Chapter One, and in Chapter Two we examine the
theology of St. John of the Cross and his Dark Night. Gorsuch says, “integration of
psychology and spirituality occurs when psychology and a discipline concerned with
spirituality (including philosophy, theology, and ethics) are simultaneously in dialogue
to address a question” (2002 p. 18). In PART TWO we make comparison of the two
thinkers, and in PART THREE of the dissertation we will examine the integration of

psychology/individuation and theology/the dark night.

 42

CHAPTER ONE: CARL JUNG AND INDIVIDUATION

It is no reproach to the Freudian and Adlerian theories that they are based upon
the drives; the only trouble is that they are one-sided. The kind of psychology they
represent leaves out the psyche, and is suited to people who believe that they have no
spiritual needs or aspirations. In this matter both the doctor and the patient deceive
themselves. Although the theories of Freud and Adler come much nearer to getting at
the bottom of the neuroses than does any earlier approach to the question from the
side of medicine, they will fail, because of their exclusive concern with the drives, to
satisfy the deeper spiritual needs of the patient…they give too little value to fictional
and imaginative processes. In a word, they do not give meaning enough to life. And it
is only the meaningful that sets us free…
…They afford, after all, no answer to the question of spiritual suffering and its
innermost meaning. A psycho-neurosis must be understood as the suffering of a human
being who has not discovered what life means for him. But all creativeness in the realm
of the spirit as well as every psychic advance of man arises from a state of mental
suffering, and it is spiritual stagnation, psychic sterility, which causes this state…
…what will [the doctor] do when he sees only too clearly why his patient is ill;
when he sees that it arises from his having no love, but only sexuality; no faith, because
he is afraid to grope in the dark; no hope, because he is disillusioned by the world and
by life; and no understanding, because he has failed to read the meaning of his own
existence?
…Human thought cannot conceive any system or final truth that could give the
patient what he needs in order to live: that is, faith, hope, love and insight…
…This opens up for us an approach to the problems of life which we can hardly
take too seriously. And it confronts the psychotherapist with a question which brings
him shoulder to shoulder with the clergyman: the question of good and evil.
…It is indeed high time for the clergyman and the psychotherapist to join forces
to meet this great spiritual task.

Carl Gustav Jung, Psychotherapists or The Clergy, Modern Man in Search of a

Soul (1933 pp. 224-9)

The way of individuation as the keystone of Jung’s widely ramifying work

is particularly suited to signalize the position which distinguishes it from
 43

other schools of psychology. It amounts to a comprehensive view of life

which embraces the all-too-human as well as the personal and the
suprapersonal. Individuation, understood as the growing self-awareness
of the individual and society, and expressed also in the transformation of
man’s idea of God in correspondence with the ruling state of
consciousness, is a social, ethical, and religious problem which is more
important for us than ever today if we are not only to endure the present
but also shape a better future.

Jolande Jacobi, The Way of Individuation (1965 p. vii)

Carl Gustav Jung

Carl Jung is widely regarded both within and outside of the psychological
community as the pre-eminent and pioneer psychologist in the psychology of religion,
as a psychologist who examines spiritual and religious contents of the psyche. He has
asserted his theory of individuation as the psychological and experiential framework
for spiritual transformation, as the psychological life cycle of spiritual individuation,
transformation, and maturation. Jung shows psychologically how people transform
spiritually. Healing, for Jung, is psychological wholeness, and in his theory of
individuation he examines the spiritual aspect of psychological wholeness.
Jung’s theory of the individuation process of spiritual transformation is systematic
and phenomenological, and occurs across the entire life cycle. Jung – psychiatrist and
psychologist – was theoretically systematic and scrutinized experience in light of
theory, and theory in light of experience. He looked for psychological processes of
transformation, whatever the contents being processed, and he fit experience and
contents into his psychological theory. Throughout his career, however, he returned to
spiritual and theological contents on an ongoing basis. The depth and volume of work
 44

devoted to psychological analysis of spiritual contents over the course of his career
makes him the premier psychologist with which to psychologically approach the
problem of understanding spiritual process.
As a physician, a psychiatrist, a psychoanalyst and a psychotherapist, Jung had
extensive and rigorous academic training and professional experience in medicine as
a physical science and in psychology as a human science. In his work as a psychologist,
particularly his notion of individuation, Jung’s life’s work was preoccupied with the

contents and function of the conscious and the unconscious, of the ego and the Self. In
his exploration of these contents he encountered and dealt with religion, theology,
spirituality, and God-images as symbols. Jung observed spiritual and religious
phenomena in the individual and in himself. His psychotherapeutic practice and
personal spiritual experiences informed his theories, which in turn informed his practice.
Religion surrounded Jung, in his father’s career and in having eight uncles who
were parsons. We see in Jung developmental trajectories: his relationship to religion;
his own inner spirituality; his academic, scientific, medical and psychological training
and practice. His interest in science fueled his education and career, and his quest to
understand human meaning propelled his client practice and his personal spiritual
practice. Thus his writings contain academic scientific approach and systematic analysis,
as well as empirical data, experiential findings, and practically - influenced theoretics.
Jung’s thoughts on religion developed greatly over the course of his career, from
the Freudian view that the father image is a precursor of the god image, to Jung’s idea
of God as a projection of psychic energy, to Jung viewing “the idea of God and the
whole complex world of religious phenomena not only as projections of psychic
processes but also as indispensable symbols that express and draw human beings
 45

toward psychic wholeness” (Wulff 1997 p. 435). In Jung’s work we see the pre-eminent
psychological view of spiritual contents of the psyche, individual phenomenology, and
spiritual transformation across the life cycle.

The facts prove, says Jung…that the psyche possesses a religious function.
The psychologist’s task lies in helping people to recover the inner vision that
depends on establishing a connection between the psyche and the sacred
images. Rather than attacking or undermining religion, psychology “provides
possible approaches to a better understanding of these things, it opens people’s
eyes to the real meaning of dogmas, and, far from destroying, it throws open an
empty house to new inhabitants”. Psychology, unbounded by creed, can help
the undeveloped mind to appreciate the value and scope of the paradoxes of
faith…to come near a comprehension of the totality of life (Wulff 1997 p. 437
paraphrases and cites Jung CW Vol. 12 Par. 17).

Methodologically, then, Jung approaches the great mysteries with which religion
and spirituality are concerned as being at the core of human existence psychically and
experientially. Therefore, it is that with which psychology must be fundamentally
concerned. He sees these factors as being at the root of the human psyche, so it is that
with which the self is most concerned and involved. He psychologically reframes human
experience within the context of religious experience, going so far as to say that the
human Self is revealed in the religious function of the psyche, and that the religious
function is inextricably linked to the manifestation of the Self. Jung’s psychological
methodology is to view and treat the human psyche and Self as being rooted in
religious experience.
So convinced was Jung of the importance of the spiritual contents of the psyche
that it was in fact Jung’s view of the spirit and its importance which caused his break
with Freud (Wulff 1997 p. 420) in 1909-13. Jung dedicated his life and career to
 46

understanding the psychology of human spirituality. To Jung, the spirit is inextricable

from being human and from consciousness. Consciousness is a crucial, integral notion
here. Psychological dynamics explain its contents and functionality. Jung gives us a tour
of the interior through his process of individuation. Edinger (1992 p. xiii) defines
Jungian individuation as “…a process in which the ego becomes increasingly aware of
its origin from and dependence upon the archetypal psyche.” Jung’s theory of
individuation focuses on the psychic processes of spiritual transformation, so it is the

theory of individuation from Jung’s corpus that receives prime consideration in this
dissertation.

Jung’s Social Location and Methodology

The ancestry of our Carl Gustav Jung, who was born in Switzerland in 1875 and
died in 1961, is traced from Carl Jung, died 1694, who was a “learned Catholic doctor
and Jurist…[and] lived at a time when pharmacology was still heavily influenced by
alchemy.” C. G. Jung, our Jung’s paternal grandfather, was a professor of surgery at
the University of Basel in 1822. Carl’s father, Paul Jung, was “a student of philology
and linguistics, in which he had earned a PhD” Subsequently he gave up his
philological studies and took up theology instead, for financial reasons. As a pastor he
was respected and loved, but “he became increasingly subject to despair, according
to his son, as he realized the hollowness of his own religious faith.” Jung’s father was
reliable but Jung did not feel close to him as he did to his “uncanny” mother, who he
had experienced as unreliable. Jung was very influenced by nature and by his intense
dreams (Wulff 1997 p. 416-8).
 47

Religious symbols appeared in his dreams to profound affect. Uninterested in

doctrine, Jung greatly anticipated his first communion, which he regarded as “the
pinnacle of religious initiation.” When he finally experienced it, nothing extraordinary
happened, and he felt that God had been absent. “I had prepared for it in all
earnestness, had hoped for an experience of grace and illumination, and nothing had
happened. God had been absent. For God’s sake I now found myself cut off from the
Church and from my father’s and everybody else’s faith…My ‘religion’ recognized no

human relationship to God, for how could anyone relate to something so little known
as God? I must know more about God in order to establish a relationship to him” (Jung
1961 pp. 56-7). He continued throughout his life to reconcile his personal psyche and
faith and religious life, while making meticulous empirical and philosophical
observations and theories of both individual and collective human psyches.
Jung considered himself to have two personalities. One was a parson’s
son who lived an “ordinary, everyday existence.” The second was “an old man from
another century…close…’to whatever “God” worked directly in him’…[who] dwelled
in the boundlessness of ‘God’s World.’” Jung said that “the play and counter play
between these two personalities…occurs in the life of every individual, although the
second figure is rarely perceived. In his own life, the second was of prime importance,
a fact reflected in the dominance of inner realities over outer events in his
autobiography. From the second personality came the dreams and visions, the sense
of destiny and inner security, the peace and solitude that characterized Jung’s life”
(Wulff 1997 p. 418). The development of Jung’s relationship to religion and of his own
inner spirituality continued throughout his life.
 48

"The division in Jung's personality was reflected in a corresponding dichotomy

of interests. He was attracted by the concrete facts of the empirical sciences, especially
zoology, paleontology and geology, but only the humane or historical studies provided
the factor of meaning. In psychiatry he found an empirical field that embraced both
biological and spiritual facts" (Wullf 1997 p. 419). In practice at the Burgholzli, the
prestigious psychiatric hospital and clinic of the University of Zurich, Jung "wished to
understand the disturbed personality, but was equally puzzled by the attitudes of his

colleagues, which seemed to him strange and reductionistic. He did not share their
apparent conviction that delusions and hallucinations are devoid of human meaning or
that the individuality of the patient may be ignored." After four years there he resigned
as senior physician because of his “burgeoning private practice" (Wullf 1997 pp.
419-20). His interest in science fueled his education and career, and his quest to
understand human meaning propelled his practice. Thus, his writings contain academic
scientific approach and systematic analysis, as well as empirical data and experiential
findings and influenced theoretics.
Jung's adherence to scientific methodology never hindered his simultaneous
insistence on understanding human phenomenology and inner meaning. Jung today
often is called a mystic, and has just as often in the past been called a philosopher, but
in his Psychology and Religion he says of himself that he is a scientist, an empiricist, a
phenomenologist. He felt it did not conflict with scientific observation and classification
of experience to also reflect on experience and its assimilation, all of which he believed
to be integral to understanding a phenomenon. His approach was from a scientific and
not a philosophical standpoint, with concentration on empirical facts.
 49

The methodological standpoint of that kind of psychology which I

represent...is exclusively phenomenological, that is, it is concerned with
occurrences, events, experiences, in a word, with facts. Its truth is a fact and not
a judgment...Psychological existence is subjective in so far as an idea occurs in
only one individual. But it is objective in so far as it is established by a society –
by a consensus gentium…
This point of view is the same as that of natural science. Psychology deals
with ideas and other mental contents as zoology for instance deals with different
species of animals. An elephant is true because it exists ...[It] is neither a
conclusion nor a statement nor a subjective judgment of a creator. It is a
phenomenon. But we are so used to the idea that psychical events are willful and
arbitrary products, even inventions of the human creator, that we can hardly
liberate ourselves from the prejudiced view that the psyche and its contents are
nothing but our own arbitrary invention or the more or less illusory product of
assumption and judgment. The fact is that certain ideas exist almost everywhere
and at all times and they can even spontaneously create themselves quite apart
from migration and tradition. They are not made by the individual, but they
rather happen -- they often force themselves upon the individual's consciousness.
This is not platonic philosophy but empirical psychology (Jung 1938 p. 1-4).

At the same time Jung states definitely that philosophy is a necessary aspect of
doing psychology. He thought Freud was wrong to not to subject his opinions and
assumptions to philosophical criticism, of which Jung said,

…[P]hilosophical criticism has helped me to see that every psychology -- my own

included -- has the character of a subjective confession. And yet I must prevent
my critical powers from destroying my creativeness... Even when I deal with
empirical data, I am necessarily speaking about myself (Jung 1933 p. 118).

It was through this telescoping lens, through philosophy at psychology, through

psychology at religion, that Jung empirically and experientially examined religion,
religiosity, human spirituality and phenomenology. Concomitantly he observed
phenomenology, and theorized about human meaning.
 50

Jung observed the psychological aspects of religion, and viewed religion

through psychological empiricism. He deliberately restricted himself to observation of
phenomena. Although he did not deny the validity of mystical, metaphysical, or
philosophical aspects of religion and the experience of it, his sole approach to religion
was phenomenological and empirical and observational.
Jung's thoughts on religion developed greatly over the course of his career, from
the Freudian view that the father image is a precursor of the god image, to the idea of

God as a projection of psychic energy, to viewing "the idea of God and the whole
complex world of religious phenomena not only as projections of psychic processes but
also as indispensable symbols that express and draw human beings toward psychic
wholeness" (Wulff 1997 p. 435). This evolutionary development of religion for Jung
was both an "inner quest and outer achievement... The intimate relation of the life and
work of an individual is perhaps nowhere more clearly illustrated than in the instance
of Jung and his psychology. Jung himself said that his work is a vital and inseparable
expression of his own inner development, that each of his writings constitutes a station
along his life's way" (Wulff 1997 pp. 421-3).
Regarding the unconscious mind Jung has a more detailed and dynamic account
of religion. Jung's interest is in what he calls "the original religious experience”. He
describes the historical context of religious experience as having developed away from
the original experience toward creeds and dogma.

Since the dawn of mankind there has been a marked tendency to delimit the
unruly and arbitrary "supernatural” Influence by definite forms and laws. And
this process has gone on in history by the multiplication of rites, institutions and
creeds. In the last two thousand years we find the institution of the Christian
church assuming a mediating and protective function between these influences
 51

and man. It is not denied in medieval ecclesiastical writings that a divine influx
could take place in dreams, for instance, but this view is not exactly encouraged
and the church reserves the right to decide whether a revelation is to be
considered authentic or not...the church has effectively discouraged the former
introspective attitude which was favorable to a serious consideration of dreams
and inner experiences (Jung 1938 pp. 21-2).
...Protestantism has...intensified the authority of the Bible as a substitute
for the lost authority of the church…Nor has the scientific criticism of the New
Testament been very helpful in enhancing the divine character of the holy
writings. It is also a fact that under the influence of a so-called scientific
enlightenment great masses of educated people have either left the church or
have become profoundly indifferent to it. If they were all dull rationalists or
neurotic intellectuals the loss would not be regrettable. But many of them are
religious people, only incapable of agreeing with the actually existing forms of
creed…The Catholic who has turned his back on the church usually develops a
secret or manifest inclination toward atheism, whereas the Protestant follows, if
possible, a sectarian movement. The absolutism of the Catholic church seems to
demand an equally absolute negation, while Protestant relativism permits
variations.
It may perhaps be thought that I have gone a bit far into the history of
Christianity for no other purpose than to explain the prejudice against dreams
and individual inner experience. But what I have just said might have been a
part of my conversation with ...[a] patient (Jung 1938 pp. 23-4).

His task as a psychologist and his approach to religion he describes as follows:

Being a doctor and a specialist in nervous and mental diseases my point

of departure is not any creed, but the psychology of the homo religiosus, the
man who takes into account and carefully observes certain factors which
influence him and, through him, his general condition. It is easy to denominate
and define those factors according to historical tradition or anthropological
knowledge, but to do the same thing from the standpoint of psychology is an
uncommonly difficult task. What I can contribute to the question of religion is
derived entirely from my practical experience, both with my patients and with
so-called normal beings (Jung 1938 pp. 7-8).
 52

Jung emphasized, in his approach to religion and in his response to his critics,
that as a psychologist he could know no more of God than what of God is in the
psyche. “Psychology as the science of the soul has to confine itself to its subject and
guard against overstepping its proper boundaries by metaphysical assertions or other
professions of faith” (Jung CW Vol. 12 par. 15). In his practice and in his own
experience Jung saw that psychology entails, observes, and tries to understand the
religious function of the psyche. He discusses the task of the psychologist in relation to

the pastoral task of clergy in his article "Psychotherapists or the Clergy" which is the
final chapter in his book Modern Man in Search of a Soul (1933). Clergy teaching
religious doctrine do not take into account psychic processes, nor do medical doctors
whose task is in the physical realm.

It is in reality the priest or the clergyman, rather than the doctor, who
should be most concerned with the problem of spiritual suffering. But in most
cases the sufferer consults the doctor in the first place, because he supposes
himself to be physically ill, and because certain neurotic symptoms can be at
least alleviated by drugs. But if, on the other hand, the clergyman is consulted,
he cannot persuade the sick man that the trouble is psychic. As a rule he lacks
the special knowledge which would enable him to discern the psychic factors of
the disease, and his judgement [sic] is without the weight of authority.
…[W]e can hardly expect the doctor to have anything to say about the
ultimate questions of the soul. It is from the clergyman, not from the doctor, that
the sufferer should expect such help. But the…clergyman often finds himself face
to face with an almost impossible task…
…The exodus from the German Protestant Church is only one of many
symptoms which should make it plain to the clergy that mere admonitions to
believe, or to perform acts of charity, do not give modern man what he is looking
for. The fact that many clergymen seek support or practical help from Freud’s
theory of sexuality or Adler’s theory of power is astonishing, inasmuch as both
these theories are hostile to spiritual values, being…psychology without the
psyche. They are rational methods of treatment which actually hinder the
realization of meaningful experience. By far the larger number of
 53

psychotherapists are disciples of Freud or of Adler. This means that the great
majority of patients are necessarily alienated from a spiritual standpoint – a fact
which cannot be a matter of indifference to one who has the realization of
spiritual values much at heart. The wave of interest in psychology…is far from
receding…Quoting a Protestant minister, I may say: ‘Nowadays people go to
the psychotherapist rather than to the clergyman’” (Jung 1933 pp. 227-8).

Although Jung speaks specifically here of the German Protestant Church, in the
context to this text he speaks of all Protestants and Catholics, and today we can speak
generally of the Christian Church. Although Jung mentions only Freud and Adler who
were prevalent at the time, psychology today includes multiple other theories, but the
great majority of them are also indifferent to spiritual values. Jung discusses the function
of the medicine man in history, of which he says:

…the medicine-man is also the priest; he is the saviour of the body as well
as of the soul, and religions are systems of healing for psychic illness. This is
especially true of the two greatest religions of man, Christianity and Buddhism.
Man is never helped in his suffering by what he thinks for himself, but only by
revelations of a wisdom greater than his own. It is this which lifts him out of his
distress.
…That is why we psychotherapists must occupy ourselves with problems
which, strictly speaking, belong to the theologian. But we cannot leave these
questions for theology to answer; the urgent, psychic needs of suffering people
confront us with them day after day…hoping that from the psychic depths which
cast up the powers of destruction the rescuing forces will come also (Jung 1933
pp. 240-1).
Jung’s position is that the psychotherapist can guide spiritual transformation
through knowledge of the dynamics and processes of the psyche, providing
understanding of the non-physical processes lacked by doctors, and of the process by
which religious teaching of clergy can become lived experience rather than just
acquired knowledge. The task of the clergy, for Jung, is religion. The task of the doctor
 54

is the body, and the task of the psychotherapist is the psyche. "'By his care for the
psyche of his patients Jung tries to understand the meaning of philosophical, religious,
and metaphysical statements and their relation to life, in order to apply them in his
psychotherapy,' says Jung's colleague and namesake"4 (Jacobi 1933 p. 55).
Prior to Jung’s break with Freud, and in spite of his great admiration of Freud,
Jung had experienced a growing frustration over the differences between their
attitudes. Freud's positivistic and dogmatic attitude, especially in regard to his theory

of sexuality, became increasingly disturbing to Jung. Whenever confronted by an

expression of the higher reaches of the human spirit, whether in a person or in a work
of art, Freud seemed immediately to suspect repressed sexuality (Wulff 1997 p. 420).
"One thing was clear: Freud, who had always made much of his irreligiosity, had now
constructed a dogma or rather, in the place of a jealous God whom he had lost, he
had substituted another compelling image, that of sexuality" (Jung 1962 p.151).
After Jung's break from Freud in 1909-13, Jung was so profoundly affected by
his own spiritual experiences that he was unable to carry on with his career. During
the years from 1912-17 Jung began to draw mandalas, which he saw as symbolic
representations of the self, and he recognized the self as the goal of psychic
development. Jung began his study of Gnosticism in 1918. In the 1920s Jung traveled
to Africa where he lived with an east African tribe, and to then New Mexico where he
lived with the Pueblo Indians, “to find the part of himself that had been covered over
by European influences” (WuIff 1997 p. 421).

4
"A. Jung, in his review of Fl. Hostie, C. G. Jung und die Religion, in Anima, Heft 4, 1957, p.
374" (Jacobi 1933 p. 152).
 55

The influences of these cultural experiences had a profound and pervasive effect
on Jung and his views of religion and religious awareness and development, so large
an effect as to greatly expand and evolve the entire context for Jung's work, life, and
for his understanding of humanness itself. All of the facets of Jung's analytical
psychology including: his structure of the human psyche as consciousness and ego; the
personal unconscious with its complexes; the collective unconscious and its archetypes;
the persona, the shadow, the anima and animus; psychological types; introversion and

extraversion; differentiation and integration; individuation; the transcendent function;

all became set within this expanded context due to the influences of these cultural
experiences.
The huge scope of these cultural influences on Jung is discussed by biographer
Anthony Stevens. Influences include the decline of organized Christian belief, and, says
Stevens, Jung “compensated for this by developing a religious attitude based on
personal experience of the numinous power of archetypes and by reaffirming the need
for a mythic connection between the individual and the cosmos.” Jung believed that to
be spiritually alive we need to understand ourselves as part of a cosmic purpose. His
diverse cultural experiences reinforced this belief as he talked with “people whose lives
had been shaped by cultures other than that of Western Europe...Jung saw that the
pre-eminence of 'head-thinking' had enabled Europeans to master the world through
science, technology and armed might but that, in the process, they had lost the capacity
to think with the heart and live through the soul...”
Jung learned that it is the primary, “primordial religious intuition” of humanity
to assume responsibility for our own part of the universe, or else everything of
importance is lost to us. The idea of the human as the messenger between heaven and
 56

earth can be seen in some form in all early religions as well as in more advanced
religions. “To the Muslim, man is the viceroy placed by God over creation; to the Hindu
the human spirit is one with the eternal and infinite Brahman; to the Christian man is
made in the image of God.”
Jung's religious orientation appreciated “the incomparable value of the sacred
view, which elevates human life above the mundane practices of subsistence and
enhances all human acts by revealing the duty we owe to each other, to our fellow

creatures and to our planet.” The sacred view gives us an understanding of our nature
as “both microcosm and macrocosm, both temporal and eternal.” That is, while we are
“subject to the constraints of daily existence, we nevertheless transcend them by virtue
of our humanity” (Stevens 1990 pp. 271-3).
For many years Jung studied alchemy, finding it to be the link between his
psychology and the Gnostics. "He finally understood that the unconscious is a process
and that the psyche undergoes transformation of development in a manner symbolized
by the alchemist's abstruse ideas and images. Out of his study of this symbolism
and the process of transformation emerged the central concept of his
psychology, individuation" (WuIff 1997 p. 422, bold Kay). Religious and spiritual
experience he saw as an integral and primary part of the overarching human
transformational process of individuation.
Jacobi says this of Jung's individuation process and how it is viewed from the
point of view of religion.

The consciously undertaken way of individuation can...be considered

from several points of view…from the religious point of view, it creates a living
relation between man and the suprapersonal and gives him his proper place in
 57

the order of the universe. Through the encounter with the contents of the
unconscious realm of the psyche and their integration with consciousness it lays
the foundations of an independent, personal philosophy of life which, depending
on the individual, may also ally itself with a particular creed.

The individuation process, she says, cannot be fully understood in its deepest essence,
because “it is a part of the mystery of transformation that pervades all creation. It

includes within it the secret of life, which is ceaselessly reborn in passing through an
ever-renewed ‘death’" (Jacobi 1967 p. 132-3).
In the process of individuation Jung brings the timeless and infinite, and the
cosmological and mythical, into the finite social and individual, conscious and
unconscious realms. It is here for Jung that collective religion and individual spirituality,
in terms of essence and developmental process, intersect. Jacobi says that the
individuation process is conducive to faith, and takes the place of speculative
knowledge, because the process conveys “empirical knowledge which is not mere
religiosity, thoughtlessly imitated and as it were grafted on to a person, but a living

relation to God, validated by the experience itself” (Jacobi 1973 p. 108).

"So long as religion is only faith and outward form and the religious function is
not experienced in our own souls, nothing of any importance has happened. It has yet
to be understood that the mysterium magnum is not only an actuality but is first and
foremost rooted in the human psyche," says Jung (cited in Jacobi 1973 p. 108). Jung’s
thought, Jacobi says, is that modern man is blocked from the access of faith because
the external images – the symbols – of the vessels of the mysteries of faith are obscured.
Thus, she says, in the work of psychoanalysis, "the field of the soul must be ploughed
up, that the word of God may take root…It is man's opportunity that God does not
 58

leave him in peace and has implanted in his psyche the prime function of faith, which
ever seeks a place where it may feel at home” (Jacobi 1973 p. 108).
Methodologically, then, Jung approaches the great mysteries with which religion
and spirituality are concerned as being at the core of human existence both psychically
and phenomenologically. Therefore, it is that with which psychology must be
fundamentally concerned. He sees these factors as being at the root of the human
psyche, so it is that with which the self is most concerned and involved. He

psychologically reframes human experience within the context of religious experience,

going so far as to say that the human Self itself is revealed in the religious function of
the psyche, and that the religious function is inextricably linked to the manifestation of
the Self. Jung's psychological methodology is to view and treat the human psyche and
Self as being rooted in religious experience, through the process of individuation.
Jacobi says, “…Jung was conditioned through and through by spiritual forces
and open to their influences. But as a man of science, to whose requirements he felt the
deepest obligations, all his efforts were directed towards systematizing his experiences
and ideas and expressing them in the clearest possible concepts” (1965 p. vii).

Historical Context of Individuation

The foremost treatise on Jung’s theory of individuation, written by Jolande

Jacobi and approved by Jung himself, describes individuation as “a guiding idea that
was to hold him in its grip all his life” (Jacobi 1965 p. 12). She says “the individuation
process is the core of his teachings, containing many of his most essential discoveries
and views (Jacobi 1965 p. 13). Although the idea of the “individuation process” can
 59

be found in Jung’s doctoral dissertation “On the Psychology and Pathology of So-
Called Occult Phenomena” (1902), the term is first seen in his book Psychological
Types, which was published in 1921, and it culminated in his last major work,
Mysterium Coniunctionis (1955-6). She says, “the individuation process is the core of
his teachings, containing many of his most essential discoveries and views” (Jacobi
1965 pp. 12-13).
The historical context that gave rise to Jung’s notion of individuation is depth

psychology5, as described by Jacobi. “…Depth psychology, the new science that arose
at the turn of the century, [began to paint] a completely different picture of man and
[to investigate] the psyche in its totality and unity, empirically. This picture…took into
account those [contents and processes] which are to be found in the limitless realms of
the unconscious psyche…” She summarizes Freud’s view within analysis as “genetic –
analytical”, with Freud attributing life success or failure to instinct, childhood
impressions and experiences, and developmental state. Jung’s analytical view,
however, was “teleological – synthetic”, wherein life’s progress was directed by the
whole of human existence, its totality beginning to end, and that the role of spiritual,
creative impulses and needs whose fulfillment is unrelated to any age are of
“paramount importance” to human development. Jacobi says,

If one wishes to make clear Jung’s position and to hear his answers to the
questions raised by these problems, this can best be done by giving an account of what
he has termed the ‘individuation process’ and of its phenomenology. The nature,

5
Jacobi defines depth psychology, and her definition works for purposes of this dissertation.
“By ‘depth psychology’ is meant all trends in psychology and psychotherapy which, in their
theoretical conceptions and their practical, medical work, take account of the ‘unconscious’,
i.e., a psychic realm neither known nor controlled by the conscious mind” (1965 pp. 143-4).
 60

content, laws, and manifestations of this process, which he gained by years of careful
observation and worked out by systematic comparative researches, constitute the pillars
of his teaching, and the conclusions that may be drawn from them are highly
characteristic of his position as a whole (Jacobi 1965 pp. 10-11).

Principium individuationis, in terms of science, is “that principle on which

depends the breaking up of the general into the particular, into single beings or
individuals…and has been the passionate concern of many brilliant minds, prompting
them to a wide variety of explanations and correlations,” minds such as Aristotle,
Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, Leibniz, Spinoza, Locke, and Schopenhauer. The
human embodies the inherent power of the principle in its highest form. Jung’s concept,
however, “although following the same kind as the other philosophical definitions, is
both broader and deeper, since it takes account not only of the conscious but also of
the unconscious components of the psyche in their delicately balanced and creative
interaction with the conscious mind” (Jacobi 1965 p. 13).

Individuation Defined

Jung defines individuation succinctly and then explains it more fully in his work
Psychological Types (Jung CW Vol. 6 pars. 757-62). His definition says that

The concept of individuation plays a large role in our psychology. In general, it

is the process by which individual beings are formed and differentiated; in
particular, it is the development of the psychological individual as being distinct
from the general, collective psychology. Individuation, therefore, is a process of
differentiation, having for its goal the development of the individual personality.

He explains individuation by comparing it to individuality and collectivity.

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…As the individual is not just a single, separate being, but by his very
existence presupposes a collective relationship, it follows that the process of
individuation must lead to more intense and broader collective relationships and
not to isolation...
Under no circumstances can individuation be the sole aim of
psychological education. Before it can be taken as a goal, the educational aim
of adaptation to the necessary minimum of collective norms must first be attained.
If a plant is to unfold its specific nature to the full, it must first be able to grow in
the soil in which it is planted…
Individuation is practically the same as the development of consciousness
out of the original state of identity. It is thus an extension of the sphere of
consciousness, an enriching of conscious psychological life.

The process of individuation is also defined and explained at greater length in

Sharp’s C. G. Jung Lexicon: A Primer of Terms & Concepts (1991 pp. 67-9). The
definition follows, quoting Sharp, with bolding by Sharp and italics quoting Jung.

Individuation – A process of psychological differentiation, having for its goal the

development of the individual personality.

In general, it is the process by which individual beings are formed and

differentiated; in particular, it is the development of the psychological individual as
being distinct from the general, collective psychology [Jung CW Vol. 6 par. 757].

A process informed by the archetypal ideal of wholeness] …The aim is not to overcome
one’s personal psychology…but to become familiar with it. Thus, individuation involves
 62

an increasing awareness of one’s unique psychological reality, including personal

strengths and limitations.

Individuation does not shut one out from the world, but gathers the world to
itself [Jung CW Vol. 8 par. 432] …Individuation has two principle aspects…first…it is
an internal and subjective process of integration, and…second, it is an equally
indispensable process of objective relationship. Neither can exist without the other,
although sometimes the one and sometimes the other predominates [Jung CW 16 Vol.
par. 448].

Individuation and a life lived by collective values are…two divergent

destinies…Individuation differs from individualism in that the former deviates from
collective norms but retains respect for them, while the latter eschews them entirely.
Thus, individuation is essentially different from the process of simply becoming
conscious.

The goal of the individuation process is the synthesis of the self [Jung CW Vol.
9 par. 278]…the goal of a lifetime [Jung CW Vol. 16 par. 400].

Individuation As Spiritual Transformation Through the Life Cycle: Self-

Realization of the Unconscious

Individuation is a process that is natural, fundamental, and immanent in every living

organism (Jacobi 1965 p. 14). The process can take place consciously or
unconsciously, and there are two kinds of the process.
 63

1. The natural process, occurring more or less autonomously and without the
participation of consciousness
2. The ‘artificial’ process, aided for instance by [psycho]analysis, developed by
definite methods, and consciously experienced (Jacobi 1965 p. 15)

Jacobi makes the analogy of the first form to a wild fruit, and of the second form

to a cultivated fruit. “In the first case everything is left to the natural process; in the
second, this is assisted, intensified, and consciously realized by the application of a
specific technique” (Jacobi 1965 p. 15). Psychotherapy is one example of this
technique.

The way of individuation, as understood by Jung, differs from the “natural”

process, which simply “happens” to a man and of which he is the passive object, in that
it is followed and experienced consciously and is actively shaped by him. Between “I
do” and “I am conscious of what I do” there is not only a vast difference but, at times,
an outright opposition…Jung lays great stress on the decisive role played by
consciousness and its capacity for insight…though he…constantly demands that
attention be paid to the “messages” sent up from the unconscious depths…when
consciousness and the messages of the unconscious are in opposition…wait…until a
tolerable solution …presents itself…[which] at least…will be in harmony with the totality
of the psyche, with the statements made by both its realms, the conscious and the
unconscious…
The peculiarity, then of the second kind of individuation process lies in the
intervention of consciousness in the spontaneous, automatic flow of psychic life (Jacobi
1965 pp. 19-20).

Individuation is seen as a maturation process, as a goal-directed process of

development. Jacobi (1965 p. 16) cites Jung as saying, “The urge and compulsion to
self-realization [that is, individuation] is a law of nature and thus of invincible power”
 64

(Jung CW Vol. 9i par. 289). There are those who naturally individualize without any
guidance, possibly those who have it “as a gift of grace” from the cradle, and those
who work hard throughout their lives to move the process along (Jacobi 1965 p. 17).
She also says that the process can be described “as the systematic confrontation, step
by step, between the ego and the contents of the unconscious” (1965 p. 34).
The individuation process is considered in two phases or stages – the two halves
of life. Particular importance is given to the transitional time from the first half to the

second. This can be called the change of life, the mid-life crisis. Jacobi describes it as
“a conflict between the onset of biological aging, expressing itself in the psychic
functions as well, and the urge and possibility for further spiritual and psychic
development. It is a critical situation in which one has reached the zenith of life, and
suddenly or gradually…is then confronted with the reality of the end – death…The
word ‘crisis’ is very apt: it comes from the Greek, krinein, which means ‘to discriminate’
and also ‘to decide’” (Jacobi 1965 p. 21). At this crisis point one must review the life
to date to see what has been missed and what is yet to be done, and assess what can
and cannot be restored or still experienced.
During this change of life adjustment physically and psychically is necessary in
both forms of individuation – natural and assisted. People at different levels of maturity
traverse this transition period in different ways, and in fact this change of life is a life
transformation. The transformation can be sudden or gradual. Jacobi says, “It is a
question of moving from an ‘ego-centred’ attitude to an ego-transcending’ one, in which
the guiding principles of life are directed to something objective…from one’s children,
one’s house, one’s work to the state, humanity, God.” She goes on to say that “The
possibility of a maturation and rounding out of the psyche is in principle inherent in
 65

every individual…The important thing is not the widened scope which consciousness
attains, but is ‘roundedness’…i.e., a state in which the greatest possible number of
man’s hidden qualities are made conscious, his psychic capacities developed and
condensed into a unity. This is a goal which generally can be reached – if at all – only
in life’s late evening” (Jacobi 1965 pp. 24-25).
Jung believes that the tasks of youth in the first half of life must be accomplished
in order for psychic development to occur in the second half. The first half of life forms

the first phase of the way of individuation, and could be “described as an ‘initiation
into adulthood’ or an ‘initiation into outer reality…the main features…at this stage are
the development of consciousness and the crystallization of the ego…the ego…must
emancipate itself from the Self and from the absorptive powers of the collective psyche
to the point where it becomes relatively self-contained” (Jacobi 1965 p. 31).
The first phase of the individuation process “properly comes to an end with the
crystallization of the ego” (Jacobi 1965 p. 41), with the ego having made the
distinction between itself and the Self. Freudian and Adlerian approaches are thought
best for younger people in the first phase, and Jung focused on people over forty and
made clear distinction between the two phases and therapeutic approaches. “The
basic facts of the psyche undergo a very marked alteration in the course of life, so
much so that we could almost speak of a psychology of life’s morning and a psychology
of its afternoon” (Jung CW Vol. 16 par. 39, cited in Jacobi 1965 p. 41). At the
beginning of the second phase the ego turns back to the Self to reconnect with it. “After
having broken away from the domain of the Self, the ego must re-establish a connection
with it so as not to remain rootless and lifeless” (Jacobi 1965 p. 42).
 66

Discussing the phenomena of projection and recollection according to Jung, von

Franz gives mythological and historical context to the psychological phenomenon of
recollection, and shows it to be constituent to the process of individuation.

These Stoic and Gnostic texts reveal two trains of thought...First, the
individual human contains in itself various kinds of sparks, the sparks of collective
representations, and must gather them into a unity…Second, the spiritual souls
of men or of certain chosen men are themselves sparks that are gathered up by
a god-man and redeemer figure and brought back into unity with God or with
the divine world. Translated into psychological language, the first process
depicts how a human being “gathers” or “collects” himself through meditation
and, for example, with the aid of his dreams becomes conscious of his complexes
and projections and in this way develops into a spiritually and morally more
integrated and more whole personality. As is well known, Jung named this the
individuation process. The Self stands, says Jung, in a creative relation to the
ego and at the same time the individual human being is the form in which the
Self becomes manifest. The re-collecting, or gathering together, of the divine
light-substance in the Gnosis and in Manichaeism corresponds psychologically
to the integration of the Self through bringing split-off contents into consciousness
(von Franz 1985 p. 172).

On the analogy of the two mythological stages to the two stages of the
individuation process von Franz summarizes by saying that “the first stage shows the
process of the inner unification of the personality in the individuation process. The
second stage, however, has reference to a special process that always accompanies
individuation in the single person: namely, the development of relatedness to certain
fellow human beings and to mankind as a whole, a relatedness that proceeds not from
the ego but from a transcendental inner center, the Self” (von Franz 198 p. 174).
Regarding the turning point from the first phase of individuation to the second,
Jung says, “The goal of psychic development is the self. There is no linear evolution;
 67

there is only a circumambulation of the self. Uniform development exists, at most, only
at the beginning; later, everything points towards the centre” (Jung 1989 pp. 196-7).
“In this sense one can regard the individuation process as a growing of the ego out of
the Self and as a re-rooting in it” (Jacobi 1965 p. 42).
When Jung considers pathologies in the context of the process of individuation
(according to Jacobi 1965 pp. 32-33) he says, “At bottom we discover nothing new
and unknown in the mentally ill; rather, we encounter the substratum of our own natures

(Jung 1989 p. 127)…psychiatry, in the broadest sense, is a dialogue between the sick
psyche and the psyche of the doctor, which is presumed to be ‘normal’ (Jung 1989 p.
110)…Like neurosis, psychosis too in its inner course is a process of individuation, but
one that is not associated with consciousness and runs on like [a dragon eating its own
tail] (Jung CW Vol. 12 figs. 6, 46, 147) in the unconscious. Psychological preparation
links the process with consciousness, or rather, there is the possibility of such a
connection and hence of a curative effect” (from a letter of Jung to Jacobi p. 1945).
In another departure from Freud Jung’s view is that neurotic and psychotic
breakdowns that happen during the transition from the first phase to the second are
due to the change of life, that is, to the inability to respond to the need for conscious
realization, and not due to childhood problems. Further, “In most of the cases the lack
of a tenable philosophy of life or of a religious foundation is also apparent – which, in
this critical phase, when everything gets unsettled and needs to be built up again, would
provide a secure foothold. As a rule there is no proper relationship to the
suprapersonal as a support, so that the crises are due to actual conflicts in the present
and not to those rooted in the past” (Jacobi 1965 p. 43).
 68

Jung drew parallels between images of the Self and God images. On the God-
image and the God-concept in the human psyche Jung says, “’At all events the soul
must contain in itself the faculty of relationship to God, i.e., a correspondence,
otherwise a connection could never come about. This correspondence is, in
psychological terms, the archetype of the God-image’ (Jung CW Vol. 12 par. 11, italics
Jacobi). Since God-images are the products of religious fantasy they are unavoidably
anthropomorphic and therefore, like every symbol, capable of psychological
elucidation. But psychology can make no statements about the nature of God. On the
other hand, it can very well observe and describe the phenomenology of his ‘reflection’
in the human psyche, and explore it scientifically” (Jacobi 1965 p. 51). Jung asserted
that as an empirical science psychology can only establish the existence in the psyche
of that which could be called a God-image, and can make no claims about the existence
of God. Physics can do without a God-image, but in psychology it must be dealt with
in the same way as other aspects of the psyche. It is for theology to make claims about
God, and it is for psychology to ascertain the existence of the God-image as an
archetype in the psyche.
Jacobi describes Jung’s position on God-images and God as immanent in man,
and sets them in the context of individuation.

The transcendent God will remain the object primarily of theology and
faith, but his operation in the depths of the psyche, as the ‘immanent God’, is
also the concern of scientific psychology, since he can make himself known
directly through the symbols of the Self. People do not listen to their inner voice,
however; only a few are able to believe that something divine is contained in
their soul (Jacobi 1965 pp. 52-3).
 69

Here Jacobi also shows how Jung’s psychology approaches God as operating “in the
depths of the psyche” as immanent, and how the person can begin to access “their
inner voice” by coming to know that “something divine is contained in their soul”.
Jung questions traditional religious and theological approach and asserts the
validity of psychological approach to God in the human psyche. He says (as cited and
edited by Jacobi 1965 pp. 52-3),

Christian education has done all that is humanly possible, but it has not been
enough. Too few have experienced the divine image as the innermost possession of
their own souls (CW Vol. 12 par. 12)….If the theologian really believes in the almighty
power of God on the one hand and in the validity of dogma on the other, why then
does he not trust God to speak in the soul? Why this fear of psychology? Or is, in
complete contradiction to dogma, the soul itself a hell from which only demons gibber?
(CW Vol. 12 par. 19).

Jacobi goes on to specify the role that images of God play in the psyche, and
how these images can be influenced by religion.

Although the Bible says ‘the kingdom of God is within you’ most people seek it
only outside. Nevertheless, from the encounter with the ‘immanent God’ the
‘transcendent God’ can be spontaneously inferred, for the God-images ‘imprinted’ in
the psyche, the symbols of the Self, logically presuppose an ‘imprinter.’ God can
naturally be outside as well as inside. He is everywhere, but it is only in the psyche that
his workings can be perceived through the symbols of the Self…

She shows that God images are of core concern to the individuation process,
and how these images positively influence, that is, transform, the person into
relationship of ego, or self, to Self, and how dissociation transforms into integration.
As she describes it,
 70

It is one of the foremost tasks of the individuation process to raise the

God-images, that is, their radiations and effects, to consciousness and thus
establish a constant dynamic contact between the ego and the Self. This alliance
bridges over the tendencies to personality dissociation, which arise from the
instincts pulling in opposite directions (Jacobi 1965 pp. 52-3).

Jacobi cites Erich Neumann as having named the relationship between the ego
and the Self an “axis” around which revolves the development of the personality, the

development of the ego and of consciousness, and every individual transformation.

When the ego becomes conscious of this axis, then the axis becomes dynamic and the
individual feels secure and whole. It then becomes, in Neumann’s terms, “a quasi-
consciousness or supra-consciousness, at any rate no longer unconscious, experience
that world and psyche, outside and inside, above and below are only two aspects of
a unity sundered by consciousness” (Jacobi 1965 p. 53).
This axis, in Jacobi’s terms, “is the vehicle also for the formation and
development of consciousness, without which God may perhaps be ‘felt’ but cannot be
perceived in his manifestations.” The essence of God transcends the confines of the

psyche, so cannot be grasped within the confines of the psyche because our way and
place of reception is our limited psychic structure. As Jacobi says, “always the plenitude
of the divine radiance has to pass through the filter of our human nature and reaches
us obscured and refracted” (Jacobi 1965 p. 54).
Jung speaks “always only” (Jacobi 1965 p. 54) of the reflection of God, the
imagery of God in the psyche as how he portrays and communicates himself to us. Also
here is the notion of the Self as reflection of the unearthly. Jacobi says, “This reflection,
this image indwelling in the human heart from time immemorial, expresses that virtual
centre in the psyche which possesses the greatest charge of energy” (1965 p. 54). Any
 71

psychic content which contacts this center receives a numinous power, and from this
center one can sense God working in the psyche. Psychic imbalance results from
decentering the God-image and replacing it with another, “For it is then no longer a
knowledge of God, his influence, that possess the individual, but the content he has put
in the psychic centre instead of the God-image” (Jacobi 1965 p. 55).
Jung thought that the Christian trinity was bound to the material world through
our existence in it, and is thereby a quaternity, with the fourth aspect being the world.

This quaternal relation combines the psychic opposites of the physical and non-physical
in the Self. Once humankind becomes conscious of the Self as everywhere there is an
experience of wholeness. That experience is described by Jung as, “They came to
themselves, they could accept themselves, they were able to become reconciled to
themselves, and thus were reconciled to adverse circumstances and
events…like…saying: He made his peace with God…sacrificed his own will…submitted
himself to the will of God” (Jung CW Vol. 11 pars. 81-2 cited in Jacobi 1965 p. 56.)
Jacobi says that “The right relation between ego and Self conveys something
of this attitude of humility, for through the Self there speaks an authority which, as
God’s representative, has the character of fate. That is why the union of the ego with
the Self is indistinguishable from a unio mystica with God, and is a shattering and
profoundly religious experience” (1965 p. 56, bold Kay). But Jung thinks that to be in
this unio mystica state as in Buddhist nirvana “does not correspond to the way of
individuation for Western man” (Jacobi 1965 p. 57) because in that state there is a
loss of dialectic between the ego and the Self.
The process of individuation, according to Jacobi, is a universal law of life, and
has an archetypal pattern containing the symbolism of birth, life, death, and rebirth.
 72

Mythology captures these patterns in tales, ritual and art. “In the individuation process,
as understood by Jung, the primary concern is the individual experience of ‘death and
rebirth’ through struggle and suffering, through a conscious, lifelong, unremitting
endeavor to broaden the scope of one’s consciousness and so attain a greater inner
freedom” (Jacobi 1965 p. 62). The common factor in individuation is
transformation (bold Kay), which does not represent a process of development, but
may be impetus for it.
In the individuation process the missing element must be found and integrated,
for psychic totality (Jacobi 1965 p. 71). “Translated into psychological language, the
first process in comparing individuation with yoga, individuation is for Jung a
psychological process, while yoga6 for the Hindu is a metaphysical process, although
the processes are analogous. However, the end goal for the yogi is dissolution of the
ego for unification of consciousness with the atman (individualized soul, or the divine
within), or attainment of spiritual higher consciousness, while for Jung the consolidation
of the ego is the goal for psychological higher consciousness. The primary feature
common to yoga and individuation is that of individual transformation which occurs
outside the collective” (Jacobi 1965 p. 72).

6
Yoga means “’union’, science of uniting the individual soul with the Cosmic Spirit”, indicating
the uniting of the spiritual with the mental, emotional and physical in the individual. It refers to
complete spiritual awareness while in the process of physical activity or in the state of
physicality. “The goal of the science of yoga is to obtain that necessary inner stillness by which
one may truly ‘know God’” (Yogananda 1946 p. 476). Yogananda cites Jung as saying,
“…Yoga is, as I can readily believe, the perfect and appropriate method of fusing body and
mind together so that they form a unity which is scarcely to be questioned. This unity creates a
psychological disposition which makes possible intuitions that transcend consciousness” (1946
pp. 226-7).
 73

Individuation involves separation and combination of conscious and unconscious

material, analogous to alchemical processes of dissolution and coagulation. Jacobi
summarizes into overlapping groups various aspects of the individuation process (1965
p. 79):

1. a.) the ‘natural’ process which is the ordinary course of human life
b.) the ‘methodically’ or ‘analytically assisted’ process worked out by Jung

2. a.) a process experienced and worked out as an ‘individual way’

b.) an initiation resulting from participation in a collective event
3. a.) a gradual development consisting of many little transformations
b.) a sudden transformation brought about by a shattering experience
4. a.) a continuous development extending over the whole life-span
b.) a cyclic process constantly recurring in unchanged form
5. a.) a process in which only the first phase is accomplished
b.) a process in which both phases follow in sequence
6. a.) a process prematurely interrupted by outer or inner circumstances
b.) an undeveloped process remaining in atrophied form
c.) a ‘sick’ or ‘defective’ process

Jung described his notion of individuation in a way that elucidates its dynamics
and points to its place in human life.

Consciousness and the unconscious do not make a whole when either is

suppressed or damaged by the other. If they must contend, let it be a fair fight
with equal right on both sides. Both are aspects of life. Let consciousness defend
 74

its reason and its self-protective ways, and let the chaotic life of the unconscious
be given a fair chance to have its own way, as much of it as we can stand. This
means at once open conflict and open collaboration. Yet, paradoxically, this is
presumably what human life should be. It is the old play of hammer and anvil:
the suffering iron between them will in the end be shaped into an unbreakable
whole, the individual. This experience is what is called…the process of
individuation (Jung 1939 p. 27).

Jung gave consideration to cultural nuances of his process of individuation, and

Jacobi described Jung’s view.

Jung has constantly emphasized that he considers the individuation

process as worked out by him, i.e., as a confrontation between the conscious
and unconscious contents of the psyche, to be the way of development specially
suited to present-day Western man. Mystery religions and initiation rites with
similar forms and similar goals have existed at all times and places, but, Jung
thinks, they should not be taken over uncritically by the West, because they
spring from an alien spiritual and religious culture. Equally, people belonging to
alien cultures can individuate only in the way which accords with their own
natures. Jung’s way of individuation will always remain foreign to them, just as
in Jung’s view a Westerner will never be able to practise yoga in its true spirit
or become a yogi. Even though the archetypal ‘ground-plan’ of the individuation
process remains more or less constant, its expression varies according to
environment, the spirit of the time, the religious attitude and conscious situation
of each individual (1965 pp. 80-1).

Here I reshape Jung’s conception of cultural nuances to say first that

individuation is a universally human process in its psychodynamics and in its spiritually
transformative nature as a human process. But Jung makes a crucial point that people
will individuate in ways which accord with their own natures, and I say this is true
individually, culturally, and socially. The way a Western person may individuate may
manifest differently than an Eastern person, but I argue that the individuation process
 75

would be psychologically and spiritually the same. I disagree that, for example, a
Western person could never become a yogi, but I agree that in order to do so the
Western person would have to learn to think and experience through the Eastern
perspective, which is possible. The crux of the matter here, and where Jung and I agree,
is as Jacobi sums up in the last statement, “Even though the archetypal ‘ground-plan’
of the individuation process remains more or less constant, its expression [or
manifestation in my terms] varies according to environment, the spirit of the time, the

religious attitude and conscious situation of each individual.”

Jung’s individuation is a process, “a possibility of development immanent in
everyone and that culminates in rounding out the individual into a psychic whole…The
beginning and end of psychic life are inseparable, bound together at every moment in
the thousand-branched stream of psychic energy which pours without cessation through
all the reaches of the psyche” (Jacobi 1965 p. 13). Energy in the psyche is dynamic,
mobilized by self-regulation and compensation. Meaning in life “strives ceaselessly and
autonomously for realization…[it] manifests itself as the maturation process of the
psyche and has as its aim the completion of the personality through the maximal
extension of its field of consciousness. This presupposes the gradual integration of
unconscious contents that are capable of becoming conscious” (italics Jacobi). The
psyche as the location of the individuation process is called by Jacobi “the theatre of
all our struggles for development. It is the organ of experience pure and simple”
(Jacobi 1965 p. 14).
The response of most people to the inner call of the immanent individuation
process is summarized in Jacobi’s commentary.
 76

In view of these high demands it is not surprising that the majority of men
follow the line of least resistance and confine themselves to the fulfillment of
biological and material needs, and for the rest are intent on gaining the greatest
possible number of pleasurable experiences. Most people look unremittingly for
‘happiness,’ and it never occurs to them that happiness is not the goal of life set
the by the Creator. The true goal is a task that continues right up to life’s evening,
namely, the most complete and comprehensive development of the personality.
It is this which gives life an incomparable value that can never be lost: inner
peace, and therewith the highest form of ‘happiness’…
It is not the length of life and not its freedom from disturbances which are
the decisive factors in the success of individuation, but…the draining of life to the
full, in the good and the difficult alike (Jacobi 1965 pp. 17-18).

Jung does not question the validity of the natural individuation process, but
rather aims to supplement and deepen the natural process. Rather than the natural
process of individuation that happens to a person, of which s/he is a passive object,
Jung emphasizes “the decisive role played by consciousness and its capacity for insight,
though he rigorously rejects its dictatorship and constantly demands that attention be
paid to the ‘messages’ sent up from the unconscious depths” (Jacobi 1965 p. 19). Jung
believes in working on the psyche to receive unconscious messages in the conscious,
and in strengthening consciousness through integration of unconscious contents in order
to face the demands of everyday life.
In Jungian psychology Jung advocates listening to the unconscious, and noting
its messages relative to the conscious. If the messages agree then Jung recommends
observance of the message from the unconscious. If, however, the messages are in
opposition and immediate reconciliation is not possible, Jung advocates waiting until a
solution acceptable to both sides presents itself. Whether or not a decision made on
this solution will be the right one or not cannot be known until the action is taken and
results are in. What is known is that action taken on a joint decision between the
 77

conscious and unconscious will be made with the full integration and harmony of the
psyche. This integration is regarded as an ethical decision. “The peculiarity, then of the
second kind of individuation process lies in the intervention of consciousness in the
spontaneous, automatic flow of psychic life” (Jacobi 1965 p. 20).
On religion and individuation Jacobi says:

It is a matter of indifference for psychic health what religion or creed a

person professes, whether he wishes to remain outside them all and to create his
own particular relation to God. From the psychological point of view, a man can
become psychically balanced and advance towards psychic wholeness whether
as a Mohammedan or a Buddhist, a Jew or a Christian. The one decisive thing
is that each should win to a form of faith corresponding to his own nature, based
on an entirely personal judgment and sense of responsibility, which sustains him
from then on and gives him inner security. One might say that in the course of
the individuation process a man arrives at the entrance to the house of God.
Whether he opens the door and penetrates to the inner sanctuary where the
divine images are, this last step is left to him alone. He may, after having
encountered on his journey the reality of the religious numina and experienced
their shattering effect in his personal life or in dreams, turn aside from them in
resistance and deny them, or else make them his innermost possession.
The individuation process can prepare the way for such insights and
decisions. It is, however, not its task to bring about a conversion or to advocate
a particular creed. In Jung’s view that does not lie within the competence of the
analyst, and must be left to the priest or theologian. For individuation is a
psychological goal and not a religious one, although it can be reached only by
including a religious attitude. (1965 p. 109).

Jung’s belief in individuation as being critically important to humanity

psychologically and spiritually is summed up by Jacobi (1965 p. 116) when she says,
“To submit to an individuation process as a conscious decision is therefore, in Jung’s
view, not only a way of developing one’s own nature, but a psychotherapeutic
necessity for all those who suffer from afflictions of the soul.”
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CHAPTER TWO: ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS AND THE DARK NIGHT

…[T]he soul speaks of the way it followed in its departure from love
of both self and all things…And it declares that this departure was a dark
night…Souls begin to enter this dark night when God, gradually drawing
them out of the state of beginners (those who practice meditation on the
spiritual road), begins to place them in the state of proficients (those who
are already contemplatives), so that by passing through this state they
might reach that of the perfect, which is the divine union of the soul with
God.

St. John of the Cross, The Dark Night (John CW pp. 360-1)

Insofar as the soul is buffeted and purged through the war of the
dark night in a twofold way (in the sensory and spiritual parts with their
senses, faculties, and passions), she also attains a twofold peace and rest
in the faculties and appetites of both the sensory and spiritual parts…The
sensory and spiritual parts of the soul, in order to go out to the divine
union of love, must first be reformed, put in order, and pacified, as was
their condition in Adam’s state of innocence…
By means of the acts of substantial touches of divine union, the soul
obtains habitually and perfectly (insofar as the condition of this life allows)
the rest and quietude of her spiritual house. In concealment and hiding
from the disturbance of both the devil and the senses and passions, she
receives these touches from the divinity. By their means the soul is purified,
quieted, strengthened, and made stable so she may receive permanently
this divine union, which is the divine espousal between the soul and the
Son of God.

St. John of the Cross, The Dark Night (John CW p. 455)

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St. John of the Cross

St. John of the Cross (1542-1591) was a Spanish priest, scholar, and mystic. He
was the reformer of the Carmelite Order together with St. Teresa of Avila, and is
considered throughout the world to be a classic writer on mysticism and spirituality. He
was declared doctor of the Catholic Church by Pope Pius XI on 24 August 1926. Of
St. John D’Souza says, “In his writings one can easily note a whole gamut of spiritual

dynamism that leads the ardent soul further towards union with and transformation into
God through an ongoing spiral dynamic process…The whole spiritual doctrine of St.
John of the Cross has the only aim <<to explain the dark night through which a soul
journeys toward that divine light of perfect union with God>>” (1996 pp. 12-3). St.
John explains spiritual growth as a transformation that occurs through a tripartite
process of purification, illumination, and union, which is the ultimate union with God.
Over the course of the past four centuries St. John has received titles and
distinctions which reflect his characteristics and contributions, according to Federico
Ruiz, in God Speaks in the Night: The Life, Times, and Teaching of St. John of the
Cross (2000 p. V) including: Spanish Carmelite of the 16thcentury; companion and
reformer with St. Teresa [of Avila]; contemplative and spiritual master; saint and doctor
of the [Catholic] Church; among the best of the Christian mystics; a poet and writer of
the highest quality; a systematic thinker and theologian.
St. Teresa called John “a divine and heavenly man” (God Speaks 2000 p. V).
Kavanaugh and Rodriguez translated The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross
(1991), and in the introduction Kavanaugh describes the relationship between Teresa
and John.
 80

...Having been told of John’s exceptional qualities, she arranged for an interview
with him. She was 52 at the time; he was 25...Teresa rejoiced over the eagerness
of her young recruit (John CW p. 13)...
How much there was, then, for John...to learn from this humble, simple,
awesome nun. Teresa, for her part, marveled as she got to know the small friar
better. “Though he is small in stature, I believe that he is great in God’s
eyes”...John was speaking so knowingly and brilliantly about the wonders of
God and the mysteries of the divine goodness that the group7 began to refer to
him as “God’s archives” (John CW p. 14).
...Right from the beginning...John dedicated himself to a task of
immediate urgency, spiritual direction. With his Bible, his experience, and his
penetrating grasp of both philosophy and theology, he began to ponder spiritual
8
growth, observing the ways of human beings , discerning the ways of God (John
CW p. 16).

Teresa was so impressed and inspired by John that he became her own spiritual
director. Kavanaugh and Rodriguez report that it was during her time with John as her
spiritual director, on 18 November 1572 she “unexpectedly received the grace of
spiritual marriage. She was now in the seventh and final dwelling place of her spiritual
journey; there in the center room of the interior castle she came to know the highest
state of intimacy with God” (John CW p. 16).

From this history with Teresa he has emerged today as a theologian, thinker,
poet, and mystic. However, it should be remembered that John’s priority was assisting
individuals in their journey toward God, so his primary focus was spiritual direction.
Kavanaugh and Rodriguez continue to characterize John by describing this focus of
spiritual direction.

7
Kavanaugh and Rodriguez here refer to small communities of Teresa’s nuns.

8
In today’s terms we would say John was an astute observer of the psychology of persons.
 81

“In his spiritual direction of others John focused on communion with God in faith, hope,
and love, called by some the ‘theological life’. This life is both active and passive and
encompasses everything, from the first steps in Christian living to the highest reaches of the
mystical journey (John CW p. 25 Kavanaugh Introduction).

What specifically were John’s concerns in writing? He felt a sadness at

seeing many who failed to advance because of what he calls darknesses and
trials. They do not go through the darkness because they do not want to, or they
do not accept all that this entails, or they misunderstand, or they lack suitable
guides. Their guides do not comfort and encourage them but too often increase
their trials and add gloom to the darkness. John wants to encourage, to comfort;
what he has learned and must explain is that God alone brings one to the summit,
and so one ought to know how to adapt to the Lord’s method of procedure.
Joys, afflictions, hopes, and sorrows accompany the journey with God, but can
also come from not adapting, from resisting God. One must know how to
journey. Here John gives substantial and solid doctrine, as he says, so that one
can move along correctly without hampering God’s work – that is, in poverty of
spirit (John CW p. 103 Kavanaugh Introduction).

“St. John of the Cross is an acknowledged master of Christian spirituality whom

Pope Pius XI proclaimed a Doctor of the Church primarily on the basis of his writings
on the spiritual life. His treatises incorporate many Christian spiritual traditions of the
centuries that preceded him…As a spiritual director, his work corresponds with many
of the psychological and theological developments of our own day. Drawing heavily
upon his own experience of journeying toward union with God and guiding others on
the same journey, John’s writings contain valuable insights for the ministry of spiritual
direction” (Culligan 1979 p. 3).
Culligan relates the history of John’s work to both contemporary theology and
psychology. He describes and cites in the literature the significant need for focus on
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John’s work today in both the Catholic tradition of spiritual direction and in the
Protestant tradition of pastoral counseling (Culligan 1979 p. 10). Karol Wojtyla (now
Pope John Paul II) describes John in terms of John’s “theological system”, which
Wojtyla says consists primarily of knowledge of the Gospel and scripture, and of
experience. John’s works, says Wojtyla, “…are not simply speculative treatises on
mystical theology; they are a witness to mystical experience…By means of testimony
verified…by St. John’s personal experience, we learn what faith is as a means of union

with God; what that reality means psychologically, on the one hand, and on the other,
as a participation in the divine; how it exists and operates in the soul; and how the
symbiosis is effected between the participated divine reality and the human intellect”
(Wojtyla 1981 pp. 21-2). Wojtyla, although focused on the dynamics of faith rather
than transformation, also thus relates theology and psychology in John’s works.
John is widely regarded as one of the most important mystical theologians
historically who has set forth in specific existential and Christian theological terms the
process of human spiritual transformation. Culligan9 clarifies the distinction between
academic theologian and mystical theologian in identifying John’s orientation toward
his writings.

John of the Cross was a mystical theologian and spiritual writer who
received his philosophical and theological training at the University of
Salamanca. Following his ordination to the priesthood (1567) and the
completion of his theological studies (1568) he never returned to Salamanca
either as a faculty member or for further studies or scholarly research. Although
he later was associated indirectly with the university of Alcala de Henares and
the University of Baeza in Andalusia as director of Carmelite students at both

9
Kevin Culligan, e-mail letter to Kay 25 April 2001
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[of] those universities, he was never on the faculty at either place. He was not,
strictly speaking, an academic theologian. That is why the term “mystical
theologian” is probably more accurate because his theological writings came
from his own inner experience of God and his spiritual guidance of many persons
(possibly as many as 1000 in various capacities).

Culligan points to the way John himself, in commentary written in 1584 for
Reverend Mother Ana de Jesus on some stanzas of his Spiritual Canticle, describes his

orientation.

Since these stanzas, then, were composed in a love flowing from

abundant mystical understanding, I cannot explain them adequately, nor is it my
intention to do so. I only wish to shed some general light on them…I believe such
an explanation will be more suitable. It is better to explain the utterances of love
in their broadest sense so that each one may derive profit from them according
to the mode and capacity of one’s own spirit, rather than narrow them down to
a meaning unadaptable to every palate. As a result, though we give some
explanation of these stanzas, there is no reason to be bound to this explanation.
For mystical wisdom, which comes through love and is the subject of these
stanzas, need not be understood distinctly in order to cause love and affection
in the soul, for it is given according to the mode of faith through which we love
God without understanding him…
I hope that, although some scholastic theology is used here in reference
to the soul’s interior converse with God, it will not prove vain to speak in such a
manner to the pure of spirit. Even though Your Reverence lacks training in
scholastic theology, through which the divine truths are understood, you are not
wanting in mystical theology, which is known through love and by which these
truths are not only known but at the same time enjoyed (John CW p. 470).

In his work The Dark Night John – priest, spiritual guide, mystical theologian
having formal academic training in theology but not wanting to be known as an
academic theologian – was not writing systematic theology, but rather was trying to
articulate lived theological experience through presentation of a theologically
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systematic understanding of the process of spiritual transformation. He looked

theologically at the processing of spiritual contents as lived experience.
John’s description of the process of spiritual transformation is that the
transformation is experiential and phenomenological. It is developmental, as it is a
process that occurs across the life cycle. “Therefore God perfects people gradually,
according to their human nature, and proceeds from the lowest and most exterior to
the highest and most interior” (John CW p. 206). Culligan says, “John states that God

communicates spiritual goods in a well-ordered way, sweetly, and according to the

mode of each one, that is, developmentally. This implies a developmental process”
(personal communication to Kay 2004).
And it is episodic, as it can occur multiple times throughout the course of the life
cycle. John says:

God begins by communicating spiritually to them, in accord with their

littleness or small capacity, through elements that are exterior, palpable,
and accommodated to sense. He does this so that by means of the rind of
those sensible things, in themselves good, the spirit, making progress in
particular acts and receiving morsels of spiritual communication, may form
a habit in spiritual things and reach the actual substance of spirit foreign
to all sense. Individuals obtain this only little by little, after their own
manner, and by means of the senses to which they have always been
attached.
In the measure that souls approach spirit in their dealings with God,
they divest and empty themselves of the ways of the senses…(John CW p.
207).

Of the overall process John says,

 85

In order that God lift the soul from the extreme of its low state to
the other extreme of the high state of divine union, he must obviously, in
view of these fundamental principles, do so with order, gently, and
according to the mode of the soul. Since the order followed in the process
of knowing involves the forms and images of created things, and since
knowledge is acquired through the senses, God, to achieve his work
gently and to lift the soul to supreme knowledge, must begin by touching
the low state and extreme of the senses. And from there he must gradually
bring the soul after its own manner to the other end, spiritual wisdom,
which is incomprehensible to the senses. Thus, naturally or supernaturally,
he brings people to his supreme spirit by first instructing them through
discursive meditation and through forms, images, and sensible means,
according to their own manner of coming to understand…The process
depends on what God judges expedient for the soul, or on how he wants
to grant it favors. (John CW p. 206).

Thus, John looks theologically at spiritual and psychological contents and

experiences. In his book, The Dark Night, he describes the individual spiritual
experience of transformation in theological terms, incorporating psychodynamic
aspects of the theological process. For John, healing is spiritual wholeness.
John’s method is described by Kavanaugh (John CW pp. 33-37 Kavanaugh
Introduction) as use of common symbols, biblical language, or conceptual terms of the
scholastic theologian, and that John communicated with his readers as a mystic, poet,
teacher, and lover of God. “For the sake of instructing,” says Kavanaugh, “[John]
draws on his knowledge of theology, psychology, and spiritual direction…A central
purpose of his was to transmit the content of his mystical experience. Such experience
favored theological reflection because the mystic enjoys a particularly enlightened
perception of the mysteries of God, of divine action, and of the life of grace in
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individuals. From a pastoral viewpoint…the mystic knows the goal and is in a better
position to delineate the way and evaluate the means.”
Kavanaugh summarizes the relationship between and synthesis of theological
reflection, mysticism, and lived experience in John’s methods, as determined by John’s
purposes.

Enlightened by his own experience and the experience of others,

sometimes – notably in the case of the great St. Teresa herself – as rich and
deep as his own, he entered as theologian the most difficult and unexplored
regions. He sought to take the revealed mysteries that had been analyzed by
theologians and create a doctrinal synthesis that would bring unity and cohesion
to all the converging realities of the process of divinization10. But in his work as
a theologian John also, in veiled ways, sought to transmit something of his own
intimate experience of God’s mystery so as to awaken a similar experience in
his readers. He presented the mystery so others might come close and be totally
transformed by it (John CW pp. 36-7 Kavanaugh Introduction).

It is the dynamics of spiritual transformation in John’s Dark Night that will receive
prime consideration in this dissertation.

John’s Social Location and Methodology

Our St. John of the Cross was born Juan de Yepes Alvarez in 1542 in
Fontiveros, Spain, a rocky, barren, agricultural place about forty miles from
Salamanca, thirty miles from Avila, and one hundred miles from Madrid. He was
descended five generations from Don Francisco Garcia de Yepes, known as a “’man

10
This ”process of divinization” in our terms is spiritual transformation.
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of arms’, or…soldier for John II, King of Castile and Leon (1405-1454)” (God Speaks

2000 p. 4). Descending from Don Francisco Garcia was Pedro Garcia, Gonzalo I,
Gonzalo II, and Gonzalo III. It was Gonzalo III who fathered Francisco de Yepes, Juan
(our John), and Luis who died very young. John’s father Gonzalo III had been
orphaned, and lived with relatives in Yepes who were prebendaries of the church of
Toledo. He had been wealthy, but after his legendary marriage out of love to John’s
mother, Catalina Alvarez, also an orphan but poor and of low status, he was disowned
by the family. John’s father is described as “venerable” (God Speaks 2000 p. 5) and
his mother as “virtuous” (God Speaks 2000 p. 12).
John was just two years old when his father died, leaving the family poor and
struggling. His mother returned to working as a weaver and moved the family to
Medina del Campo in the market center of Castile, and John began primary school in
one for poor children, instructed principally in Christian doctrine. The priest who
directed the school chose John to be an acolyte at the local monastery of the
Augustinian nuns. Finding no affinity for a trade apprenticeship, John showed such
great compassion for the sick that the administrator of the hospital for the poor in
Medina, Don Alonso Alvarez, took interest in John. Don Alonso employed John in the
hospital as a nurse and to collect alms, he helped John further his studies, then
encouraged him to enter the priesthood and offered to him the hospital chaplaincy.
Rejecting offers that may have helped his family out of poverty, John instead entered
the newly founded Carmelite novitiate in Medina, becoming Fray (Brother) John of St.
Matthias in 1563 at age twenty-one.
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It is thought to be likely that during his novitiate John was deeply influenced by
one passage in particular in The Book of First Monks, a medieval Carmelite work on
the spirit of the order which it is supposed that he studied.

The goal of this life is twofold. One part we acquire, with the help of
divine grace, through our efforts and virtuous works. This is to offer God a pure
heart, free from all stain of actual sin…The other part of the goal of this life is
granted us as the free gift of God: namely, to taste somewhat in the heart and
to experience in the soul, not only after death but even in this mortal life, the
intensity of the divine presence and the sweetness of the glory of heaven. This is
to drink of the torrent of the love of God. God promised it to Elijah in the words:
“You shall drink from the brook.” It is in view of this double end that the monk
ought to give himself to the eremitic and prophetic life” (John CW p. 11
Kavanaugh Introduction).

We will see that this influence is likely, in John’s thinking, in his notion of active and
passive phases of the Dark Night, in the process of spiritual transformation.
After his novitiate year, John began his university studies in philosophy and
theology at Salamanca. “In its period of greatest splendor, the university of Salamanca
boasted professors of high prestige, large numbers of students from all parts of Spain,
an emphasis on biblical and theological studies, and a variety of schools of thought. It
ranked with the great universities of Bologna, Paris, and Oxford” (John CW p. 11
Kavanaugh Introduction). We know he was registered in the arts for three years, but
have no record of his courses then or during his registration in theology in 1567-1568.
We do know the theological curricula “comprised a return to the sources (Sacred
Scripture, the Fathers of the Church, and Aquinas), along with…dealing with new
themes and contemporary questions…expressed in sober and direct language…At the
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time there was a lively struggle…over the interpretation of Scripture” (John CW p. 12

Kavanaugh Introduction).
John was appointed prefect of studies, which included teaching classes daily,
defending public theses and resolving raised objections. Though he enjoyed studies
and was an “outstanding” student (John CW p. 12 Kavanaugh Introduction), he was
most attracted to the contemplative life, and in 1567 he was ordained priest, becoming
Fray John. In Medina that fall he met Mother Teresa de Jesus of Avila, who was in

Medina founding a second community of nuns. She was at that time thinking of adding
friars to the contemplative style she had developed in Avila. She met with John, she at
age fifty-two and he at twenty-five, and the following fall they set off together on
Teresa’s travels, to reform Carmelite orders in contemplative style and in small
communities.
This movement was part of a larger Spanish reform in the sixteenth century as
an outgrowth of the fifteenth century decimation of religious communities as well as
society by an epidemic called the Black Death (bubonic plague). The larger reform
movement was characterized as including:

• Return to one’s origins, primitive rules, and founders

• A life lived in community with practices of poverty, fasting, silence,
enclosure
• Life of prayer as most important

The reformed communities were varyingly referred to as reformed, observant,

recollect, hermit, contemplative, and discalced. “Discalced” was often used to refer to
 90

Teresian communities because they wore sandals rather than shoes (John CW p. 13
Kavanaugh Introduction). “Recollect” refers to the process of recollection which
developed during these times of reform as the emphasis of religious life shifted away
from “affectivity, external ceremonies, devotions, and community vocal prayer”
because of its tedious daily practice, to an increase in “interior prayer” (John CW p.
13 Kavanaugh Introduction).

…As a matter of fact, a new practice called “recollection,” whose

followers were called “recogidos,” developed in many Franciscan houses. This
spirituality made union with God through love its most important concern,
seeking nourishment in Scripture and classic spiritual works…
The Franciscan friar Francisco de Osuna elaborated this spirituality in The
Third Spiritual Alphabet, a book that inspired Teresa and initiated her into the
way of interior prayer. Osuna taught that to advance spiritually you must
practice recollection in imitation of Jesus Christ, who went alone into the desert
to pray secretly. By this recollection, also called mental prayer, Osuna
explained, you withdraw from people and noise and enter within yourself (John
CW pp. 13-14 Kavanaugh Introduction).

This influence is significant because as we examine John’s theology and

methodology and his Dark Night we will see that recollection begins the process of
spiritual transformation for John. In his Spiritual Canticle he says,

It should be known that the Word, the Son of God, together with the
Father and the Holy Spirit, is hidden by his essence and his presence in the
innermost being of the soul. Individuals who want to find him should leave all
things through affection and will, enter within themselves in deepest recollection,
and let all things be as though not. St. Augustine, addressing God in the
Soliloquies said: I did not find you without, Lord, because I wrongly sought you
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without, who were within.11 God, then, is hidden in the soul, and there the good
contemplative must seek him with love, exclaiming: “Where have you hidden?”
(John CW p. 480).

Throughout his corpus John speaks of the need for a recollected soul and for
solitude, quietude, and recollection to be conditions for receptivity of God’s activity in
us. There is no place in his corpus where John specifically defines “recollection”, which
implies that the concept was a fairly well-known one at the time of his writings,
particularly among religious. He insists on recollection along with spiritual solitude for
spiritual growth from discursive meditation (of beginners) to contemplation (of
proficients) to union with God (of perfects), as we will examine more closely in his Dark

Night. “One speaks badly of the intimate depths of the spirit if one does
not do so with a deeply recollected soul” (John CW p. 37 Kavanaugh
Introduction, bold Kay).
This is also significant because it is the pivotal notion which effects the transition
in spiritual transformation from discursive and externalized prayer to contemplative,
internalized prayer. It is this notion of recollection which points the way of spiritual
growth from outward, collective, socialized religious experience to inner, personal,
individualized spiritual experience. This is the direction in which Osuna and John,
above, are pointing in their teachings. There is great resonance with this sixteenth
century notion today as more and more people, whether participating in religious
practices or living increasingly secular lives, hunger for personal increase of the spiritual
dimension of their selves and lives.

11
“This passage is from Pseudo-Augustine, Soliloquiorum animae ad Deum 1.30, in Migne, PL
40.888.”
 92

As John mentions this repeatedly in his corpus, it is not part of the way John
teaches for growing through the Dark Night and toward union with God, but he is
explicit and insistent that recollection is a precondition for growth to take place. John
worked primarily with religious who were desiring more progress spiritually, having
already committed to the spiritual life, but in this dissertation I look psychologically, that
is, secularly, at spiritual transformation as human process, so I look more broadly at
working with anyone desiring spiritual progress. Those not committed to spiritual life
need to “recollect” themselves from secular life in some form in order to pursue their
inner, spiritual growth. The process of recollection, then, becomes a major turning point
from secular consciousness and socialized experience toward religious consciousness
and internalized spiritual experience. I concur with John that recollection is an essential
condition for spiritual transformation to occur, but from our broader, secular view it
serves our expanding understanding of secular beginnings of spiritual transformation
to include the pivotal process of recollection as part of the spiritual transformation
process. This we will pursue in greater detail in subsequent chapters.
John’s forty-nine year life was lived in the second half of the Sixteenth Century,
the period of Philip II of Spain (1556-1598) which was considered to be “a particularly
brilliant moment of Spanish history…[an] intense and creative…’golden age’
[of]…exuberant vitality and valuable creations: in socio-political, cultural, and religious
fields of life… The political factors reached [John] only from afar; the cultural and
religious ones affected him continually and closely” (God Speaks 2000 p. 28 Ojeda).

In those times Spain had the sense of reaching across the entire world:
Spain, Portugal, Europe, Africa, America, and the Philippines. It had a dominion
that gave it the feeling of power and glory, although the cost was exorbitant and
 93

the sacrifices innumerable. Culture and the arts were flourishing. During the
sixteenth century the number of universities rose from 11 to 32. Theological
faculties jumped from 10 in 1530 to 23 in 1568…As for literature, the century
marked the culminating moment of Castilian poetry and prose: Fray Luis De Leon,
St. Teresa of Jesus [of Avila], St. John of the Cross, Gongora, Lope de Vega,
Cervantes. These few names are sufficient to give distinction to a century.
Yet, what was most universally felt and cultivated throughout the century
was the world of faith and spirituality. That was also the world that most
intimately affected John of the Cross. There were longings for spiritual renewal;
initiatives were taken on all levels, among the simple people, within organized
and established groups, and as a necessity for any general Church reform. The
preferred themes were prayer, recollection, evangelization, rites and
ceremonies, asceticism, and mysticism. A list of authors would be interminable.
In addition to those mentioned above were Cisneros, Osuna, Saint Ignatius, Saint
John of Avila, Fray Luis de Granada, and so on (God Speaks 2000 p. 28
Ojeda).

It is also helpful in understanding John to bring to mind the general European

historical context of his Spanish social location at the time. St. Ignatius of Loyola was
born in 1491. In 1492 Columbus made his way from Spain to the new world; the
Spanish Inquisition began; Lorenzo de Medici died. Niccolo Machiavelli died in 1527,
and Spanish King Philip II – of John’s social location – was born. Ignatius of Loyola in
1540 founded the Society of Jesus (the Jesuit society). In 1542 our John was born. The
Council of Trent was called by the pope in 1545. Ignatius of Loyola died in 1556. The
reign of Queen Elizabeth I of England began in 1558. The Council of Trent ended in
1564. It was in 1567 that our John met Teresa of Avila, and in 1572 he became her
spiritual director. In 1585 King Philip II formally declared war on England after much
antagonism between the two countries over the Dutch, and in 1588 his Spanish Armada
was defeated in the English Channel. Our John died in 1591. King Philip II died in
1598. The reign of Queen Elizabeth I ended in 1603 when she died.
 94

Nearly twenty saints from this golden age in Spain were later canonized, and
John was their contemporary. John of the Cross was canonized 27 December 1726 by
Pope Benedict XIII. He was declared a Doctor of the universal Church by Pius XI in
1926, and 1952 he was named the patron of Spanish poets by the Spanish Ministry of
National Education.

Historical Context of The Dark Night

Although as their relationship grew from their meeting in 1567 John and Teresa
had agreements and disagreements, Teresa’s centeredness in Christ predicated all she
did and all of her interactions and teaching, and deeply influenced John.

…Only with Jesus Christ could she enter the inner castle through prayer; there
he became increasingly present as she advanced toward the inmost dwelling
place. Presence to Christ was what made prayer for Teresa, in the beginning
stages, in the middle, and in the highest as well. “Never leave Christ in whom
the human and divine are joined, and who is always one’s companion,” she
warned the theologians who began to come to her to learn about contemplation.
“He is the one through whom all blessings come. He is always looking at you;
can you not turn the eyes of your soul to look at him?”
Her communities, too, had no meaning without Jesus Christ in the center.
They were to be small communities; only 12 nuns at first, gathered around Christ
as his friends. No class distinctions! These class divisions characterized women’s
cloisters in those times, ruled by the nobility…In Jesus Christ all were to be equal,
Teresa insisted, and the superior the first to take her turn sweeping the floor (John
CW p. 14 Kavanaugh Introduction).

Teresa admired and was so impressed with John that she believed she could
have learned more from him than he could have learned from her. John finished his
training with her and left for Duruelo, between Avila and Salamanca, to develop a
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house that Teresa had acquired for her first – the first – monastery for discalced
Carmelite friars. On 28 November 1568 our Fray John of St. Matthias took his monastic
vows and changed his name to John of the Cross. He developed this and another
novitiate and established and became rector of a house of studies for new friars, near
the University of Alcala.
“Right from the beginning, then, John dedicated himself to a task of immediate
urgency, spiritual direction. With his Bible, his experience, and his penetrating grasp

of both philosophy and theology, he began to ponder spiritual growth, observing the
ways of human beings, discerning the ways of God.” John began to be spiritual director
for the nuns at Avila in May 1572, when he became Teresa’s own director. On 18
November of that year with John as her director “Teresa unexpectedly received the
grace of spiritual marriage. She was now in the seventh and final dwelling place of her
spiritual journey; there in the center room of the interior castle she came to know the
highest state of intimacy with God” (John CW p. 16 Kavanaugh Introduction). His
direction expanded into the city, where he also taught reading and writing to the poor.
In 1575 in Italy the Carmelite order began to consider the Spanish Carmelite
reformation to be disobedient, rebellious, and contumacious, and after Teresa’s term
as prioress ended, John was arrested by Carmelites “of the observance” in January
1576. He was released by intervention of the nuncio, but after the death of the nuncio
John was imprisoned on 2 December 1577 in the prison at the monastery of Toledo
that housed over eighty Carmelite friars. He was kept in a six by ten foot room alone
with only a slit in the wall for air, little clothing in cold winter and little air in hot summer,
given bread and water, kept unwashed and lousy, and enduring floggings. He
composed poetry in his mind, which is thought to have expanded through prayer,
 96

meditation and contemplation, until a kind jailer gave him paper and pen to write his
poems down.
After nine months in prison and close to death, he implemented a well-considered
escape to refuge with Teresa’s nuns. It is considered that this was John’s own personal
dark night, and it is thought that John wrote his poem The Dark Night in 1578 or 1579
once out of prison. King Philip II himself established a commission to assess the
accusations against the reformer/discalced Carmelites by the observant Carmelites. The
commission appointed a provincial to be in charge of Teresa’s nuns, and her new friars,
who numbered now over three hundred. The provincial, although an observant
Carmelite, is described as “a gentle and discreet man whose main concern was to
console the afflicted and promote peace” (John CW p. 20 Kavanaugh Introduction).
John was sent to El Calvario, a peaceful and beautiful place far away from the
Carmelite conflicts of jurisdiction. He spent a great deal of time in nature, from which
God spoke to him everywhere.
He a year later became rector of the Carmelite college in Baeza, and resumed
his ministry of spiritual direction of friars and nuns from 1579-1582. On one of his trips
to the little Andalusian town of Beas, John met prioress Ana de Jesus, who overlooked
John in her search for a spiritual director. On the urging of Teresa John became director
to Ana de Jesus and her nuns. He shared his poetry with them, and began his
commentaries on his poetry through his talks with them about it. His work as a writer
was set into motion here, and he began writing his classics in spirituality. In 1581-1585
he wrote the treatise Ascent of Mt. Carmel, the precursor to his Dark Night commentary.
The discalced Carmelites received juridical independence via the king in 1580,
and although granted an autonomous province by the Holy See, they remained under
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the higher jurisdiction of the general of the observant Carmelites, receiving complete
independence via the pope in 1593, after the deaths of Teresa and John. When in
1582 John was elected prior of a monastery overlooking Granada, his spiritual
direction expanded from friars and nuns to clergy and lay people, and he continued to
write. It was in 1584-1585 in Granada that John wrote commentary on his poem The
Dark Night.
In 1585 he was elected vicar provincial of Andalusia, and he began to travel
and founded seven new monasteries. In 1588 John was elected third councilor to the
vicar general for the discalced, and was also prior in Segovia. He spent his time in
manual labor, prayer, and deep contemplation, quickly ending his writing with his last
work, The Living Flame of Love. When disagreements between the discalced themselves
began, John was sent back to an isolated monastery in Andalusia. In September he fell
ill and went to the monastery at Ubeda. In December he died, repeating, “Into your
hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit” (John CW p. 23 Kavanaugh Introduction).
In characterizing John and summarizing his overall methodology Kavanaugh
says:

Quick to perceive sadness or depression in another and eager to comfort

the downcast, he could appreciate humor. Surprisingly, witnesses have told of
his gift for humor and the enjoyment he got from making others laugh. They
looked forward to having him present…
Human needs are not only material and psychological; there are
distinctive spiritual needs as well. In his oral teaching John used to point out that
the more you love God the more you desire that all people love and honor him
and as the desire grows you work harder toward that end, both in prayer and
in all other possible works. His preferred work was spiritual direction, whereby
he could help to free individuals from their moral and spiritual illnesses…
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But his deepest concern was for those who were suffering in their spiritual
life. The needs of souls struggling with inner trials stirred him to write The Ascent
of Mount Carmel and The Dark Night. If his intense portrayal of the afflictions
of the dark night can prove frightening to some, his desire in so presenting them
was to include everyone by describing these sufferings in their extreme form. He
wanted everyone to find comfort in the thought that however severe it may be,
purification is still the work of God’s gentle hand, clearing away the debris of
attachment and making room for the divine light…(John CW pp. 25-6
Kavanaugh Introduction).

The Dark Night Defined, as Metaphor, and “Dark Night of the Soul”

Dark Night Defined

St. John believed that the human creature must be purged of the lower nature,
the natural tendencies, all qualities and thoughts and desires in, of, and for the material
world and other creatures, which prevent spiritual progress of the person to the final
spiritual perfection in union with God, when the will of the person becomes the will of
God, when there is no separation between person and God. He sees two aspects of

human existence: one is the life of the senses and the other is the life of the spirit, saying
that this is "according to the two parts of the soul, the sensory and the spiritual" (John

CW p. 375).
People have these two aspects of soul, or live in both of these modes, sense and
spirit. Purification, or purgation, must occur in both of these modes in order for perfect
divine union to occur. He sees purification - in both of these modes - happening in two
ways: one is active purification and the other is passive purification. In active
purification John describes human ability, attitude, impetus and agency in active
purification, when the person takes an active role in his/her own purification. John
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deals in depth with active purification in his work, The Ascent of Mount Carmel. He is

interested in the active purification and believes that one must do one’s part in one’s
spiritual transformation and purification. But his focus is more intent on passive
purification because in passive purification it is God who is the agent of purgation, and
the purification process is directed and affected by God. The person does not have
agency in passive purification; it is only God who has agency. The person can only be
receptive to God and respond to God's agency (John CW p. 353). He sees purgation
of the senses as first in time, and purgation of the spirit as subsequent, a purification
which John calls a "dark night" (John CW p. 119). Thus he deals with passive
purification of both sense and spirit in depth in his work, The Dark Night.
John says that he "term(s] these purgations nights because in both of them the
soul journeys in darkness as though by night" (John CW p. 118). In commenting on the
first stanza of the poem, The Dark Night, John says, "This dark night is a privation and
purgation of all sensible appetites for the external things of the world, the delights of
the flesh, and the gratifications of the will. All this deprivation is wrought in the
purgation of sense" (John CW p. 119). He also calls the purification of the spirit, or the
spiritual purgation phase the "dark night" because, he says, "The second night or
purification takes place in those who are already proficients, at the time God desires
to lead them into the state of divine union. This purgation, of course, is more obscure,
dark, and dreadful" (John CW p. 119).
He goes on to say that he uses “the expression 'night' to signify a deprival of the
gratification of the soul's appetites in all things. Just as night is nothing but the privation
of light and, consequently, of all objects visible by means of the light - darkness and
emptiness, then, for the faculty of sight - the mortification of the appetites can be called
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a night for the soul. To deprive oneself of the gratification of the appetites in all things
is like living in darkness and in a void. The eye feeds on its objects by means of light in
such a way that when the light is extinguished the eye no longer sees them. When the
appetites are extinguished - or mortified - one no longer feeds on the pleasure of these
things, but lives in a void and in darkness with respect to the appetites” (John CW pp.
121-2).
It is reasonable to think that John developed his understanding of such

deprivation of experience of the external, sensory world at least in part when he was
in prison at Toledo. Another aspect of John's use of the term dark he says "arises from
the fact that all of a person's attachments to creatures are pure darkness in God's sight.
Clothed in these affections, people are incapable of the enlightenment and dominating
fullness of God's pure and simple light; first they must reject them. There can be no
concordance between light and darkness" (John CW p. 123). The dark night, then,
also has elements of God's view of disordered human attachments as dark, of the
darkness as distinct from light, as the absence yet of God's light, and as a lack of
concordance between where the person is with sense attachments and where God
wants him/her to be, without any attachments but him.
John details his views of the appetites primarily in The Ascent of Mount Carmel
Book One chapters 11-13 that he wrote between the poem The Dark Night and his
commentary on it. Most often when he speaks of the appetites he means disordered or
voluntary appetites, according to the following distinctions between them and the
involuntary or natural, rightly-ordered appetites.

…[T]he appetites are not all equally detrimental, nor are all equally a
hindrance to the soul. I am speaking of the voluntary appetites because the
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natural ones are little or no hindrance at all to the attainment of union, provided
they do not receive one’s consent or pass beyond the first movements, those
stirrings in which the rational will does not take part either before or after. To
eradicate the natural appetites, that is, to mortify them entirely, is impossible in
this life. Even thought they are not entirely mortified…they are not such a
hindrance as to prevent one from attaining divine union. A soul can easily
experience them in its sensitive nature and yet be free of them in the rational
part of its being…
But all the other voluntary appetites, whether they be the most serious
that involve mortal sin, or less grave in that they concern venial sin, or whether
they be the least serious of all in that they only involve imperfections, must be
mortified. A person must be liberated of them all, however slight they be, in
order to arrive at this complete union. The reason is that in the state of divine
union a person’s will is so completely transformed into God’s will that it excludes
everything contrary to God’s will, and in all and through all is motivated by the
will of God.
Here we have the reason for stating that two will become one. And this
one will is God’s will, which also becomes the soul’s. If a person were to desire
an imperfection unwanted by God, this one will of God would be undone
because of the desire for what God does not will.
Clearly, for a soul to reach union with God through its will and love, it
must first be freed from every appetite, however slight. That is, one must not give
consent of the will advertently and knowingly to an imperfection, and one must
have the power and freedom to be able, upon advertence, to refuse this consent
(John CW p. 142).

Whereas John speaks of "deprivation" in the dark night of sense, that is,
deprivation of the natural, creaturely appetites and their gratifications in the external,
sensory world, John speaks of "negation" in the dark night of spirit, saying, "...all that
is required for complete pacification of the spiritual house is the negation through pure
faith of all the spiritual faculties and gratifications and appetites" (John CW p. 155).
He explains that when this negation occurs, the soul achieves union with God; the
spiritual part of the soul is stilled, and comes to rest in God (John CW p. 155).
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John says that in the dark night of sense "the senses are purged and
accommodated to the spirit", whereas "the spirit is purged and denuded as well as
accommodated and prepared for union with God through love". In passing through
the night of sense one moves in the direction of union with God from "beginner" to
"proficient", and in moving through the night of spirit one moves from "proficient to
perfect", that is, to being perfected in full union with God. The first night John describes
as "bitter and terrible to the senses", whereas the second night John says "is horrible

and frightful to the spirit" (John CW pp. 375-6). It can then also be said that, whereas
the dark night of sense ends in the darker night of spirit, the dark night of spirit ends in
the light of union with God. This dissertation uses St. John’s definition of his dark night.

Dark Night as Metaphor

John uses many metaphors, such as: the analogy of taking a course of action to
taking a road or a path (for example John CW p. 397); receiving nourishment from
spiritual food (John CW p. 398); God as a divine light, illuminating souls with divine
wisdom (John CW p. 401); fire metaphor to describe inner torment; gold in the crucible
to the soul being purified, like Ezekiel's reference to melting of metal and rust being
consumed. He cites David's cry likening the purgation of his soul to the waters of the
sea coming all of the way into his soul (John CW p. 405). He cites other Biblical figures
and analogies they have made, such as Job and Jeremiah (Dark Night Book Il). One
of the most memorable and one of the most powerful metaphors is the example of the
soul being purged and prepared for union with the divine like wood is dried and
prepared for fire. The wood is transformed in the fire to something brilliant and
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illuminated and illuminating, like the soul is purged and is enkindled with love. He points
out that it is the love of God that inflames the passive and receptive soul, as it is the
fire, which warms and illumines the passive wood (John CW pp. 416-421). At various
places in his corpus he refers to the soul's spiritual transformation as changing roads.
Those who cannot find help or consolation in a spiritual director he says
"...resemble one who is imprisoned in a dark dungeon, bound hands and feet, and
able neither to move nor see nor feel any favor from heaven or earth." And when that

person experiences purgation as illumination the soul feels unshackled and released
from a dungeon to experience abundance of spiritual communication with God (John
CW p. 408). The striking of spiritual illumination on the soul John likens to a ray of
sunlight coming through pure clean air, which makes it more difficult to be seen because
of its purity and clarity. This he contrasts with light seen by the senses, such as when it
is reflected off of dust and impurities in the air. What is seen physically clearly is not
spiritual, and what is seen clearly spiritually is not physical, and is pure "because it is
not particularized by any distinct object of affection" (John CW pp. 410-11).
All of these metaphors give images and conjure experiences to help us
understand the principles and dynamics of spiritual transformation as the way to union
and spiritual perfection in God, but it is in the dark night metaphor where the passive
experience of God’s transformative work can be most clearly understood. By
considering the passive dimensions of spiritual transformation, in which we are in a
dark night awaiting God’s activity, we come to understand what it is like to be in the
dark night and how it is we can be divinely acted upon, purged and illuminated by
God, spiritually transformed by his healing into a new wholeness. The metaphor of the
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dark night enables us to comprehend and to relate to the experience and the process
of inner spiritual transformation.

The Term “Dark Night of the Soul”

The Dark Night of the Soul is the title of the British English translation of John’s
The Dark Night by E. Allison Peers (1990). This appears to be the origin of the

contemporary term “dark night of the soul” which we are hearing on a more frequent
basis today, in personal conversations and in both print and spoken media. It is
important to note at this juncture that the term “dark night of the soul” is Peers’ title and
not John’s term, although Peers’ understanding in his title “is in keeping with John’s
understanding of the human person, for John uses the term ‘soul’ (el alma) to refer to
the whole human person, including both sense (el sentido) and spirit (el espíritu). By
expanding the title The Dark Night to The Dark Night of the Soul, Peers is implying that
the book [by John] The Dark Night deals with the inner, passive purification of the
entire human person, both in sense (Night Book I) and in spirit (Night Book II)”
(Culligan, personal communication to Kay 2005).
It is noteworthy to distinguish where this term comes from in relation to John’s
original Dark Night, which we are employing in this dissertation. And, it is important
to note that the popular understanding of the term – often peppered into a sound-bite-
sized reference – does not fully understand the term with its active and passive, sense
and spirit aspects, nor in terms of God relationality. It is most often used to denote –
among other things – an inner conflict, a time of doubt, a pervasive depression, or a
dilemma that is not immediately reconcilable. “The soul” is understood in contemporary
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terms often differently than John understood it; theological anthropology is not
considered; “the dark night” is measured with the yardstick of personal unhappiness
rather than spiritual progress; and the intricacies of the passages of John’s Night and
the dynamics of spiritual transformation are not understood in such a way that the true
process of the soul is under consideration as it is in John’s The Dark Night. In
contemporary parlance the term “dark night of the soul” is usually understood cursorily
as a point in time in which a person is experiencing inner turmoil in some existential or
experiential circumstance.
This is not significant for purposes of understanding St. John, but it is significant
for understanding how contemporary people perceive the commonly used term “dark
night of the soul”, without being familiar with John’s actual, original work. Although
the contemporary use is often partial and/or incorrect according to John’s meaning –
as a widespread appropriation of the term without full understanding of it – its usage
in our time and culture is noteworthy and becoming more and more common. The
significance here of Peers’ term “dark night of the soul” is that popular consciousness
of the occurrence of such a time and experience as the “dark night” or “darkness” is
expanding; that real-life contemporary experiences are being seen in terms of being in
the “darkness”; that the acknowledgement and understanding of the process itself is
increasing in frequency of recognizing similarities of the “darkness” both as a
metaphorical place and as an actual human process or passage. It is of greatest
significance for this dissertation to recognize and acknowledge that popular awareness
of the reality of experiencing “the dark night of the soul” is heightening, and that there
is a rapidly growing need for use of such a term to designate this kind of human
experience in common contemporary parlance. This heightening awareness carries a
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profound implication of a concomitant growing therapeutic need for popular

understanding of the process of spiritual transformation.

The Dark Night as Spiritual Transformation in Stages: Life Cycle,

Developmental, Episodic

The dark night plays the most pivotal role in human transformation because it is
the nadir of individual existence and worldly interaction and fulfillment. It is the place
in human development of a lifetime in which everything else is suspended for the
individual except the need of the soul of that individual for spiritual growth. In the night
of sense the individual grows away from the world and is forced into him/herself, into
contemplation. The human is transformed in his/her relation to the world, to the
environment, in John’s terms to the external sensory world. Here also the individual
undergoes a fundamental reorientation as to how the person interacts with the world.
Prior to the night of sense the person has been oriented to the world via the senses,
how the senses perceive the world, the information received via the senses about the
world, and the mind has used this sensory information to evaluate itself and to make
rational decisions as to what the individual wills to do, what gratification the person
will pursue.
In the dark night the person is totally transformed in awareness, and in
orientation to self and to the world. The way the mind operates, through reasoning,
and the way the will operates, in direction toward the object of the appetites, is
changed forever. The mind is no longer the final arbiter, but becomes an ancillary
processor. The will becomes disconnected from pursuit of gratification of the appetites
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in the external sense world, and becomes redirected inward toward the soul's desire
for union with God.
This reorientation toward the world in consciousness results in life transformation
such that the inner life takes precedence, and the human life of the person is
transformed according to the spiritual transformation that takes place first in the dark
night of sense (el sentido), then in the dark night of the spirit (el espíritu). Human
transformation can take place in many ways and in many life areas, but the

transformation that occurs in the dark night is a total transformation of the human
person, the life of the person, and the spiritual status of the soul of the person and the
person him/herself. The person is totally transformed in relation to the world and in
relation to God in the dark night. It can be said that Christian faith is what is developed
during the dark night.
The goal of human transformation according to St. John is the perfection of the
spiritual life, which is the complete union with God through love. It requires the
annihilation of the disordered, voluntary appetites and the purification of ones natural
tendencies. The transformation is the death of the old, natural, material, sensory life as
it gives way to the new spiritual life, which must be a total transformation, a complete
purgation of the old, creaturely life. Only in the new spiritual life can the perfected
union with God occur, and all of the inclinations and appetites become divine – in St.
John’s startling words the very appetite or longing of God –apetito de Dios (John CW
p. 671). The newly transformed being becomes divine and lives the life of God, having
left the animal life and entered the spiritual life.

And the natural appetite that only had the ability and strength to relish
creatures (which causes death), is changed now so that its taste and savor are
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divine, and it is moved and satisfied by another principle: the delight of God, in
which it is more alive. And because it is united with him it is no longer anything
else than the appetite of God ((John CW p. 671).

This is done by transformation of the faculties. The intellect no longer relies solely
on information from the senses, but instead unifies with God's intellect. The will dies to
its own affections and in union with God becomes one with God's love. The memory
loses its awareness of itself and is one with God's awareness of eternity and divinity.
John summarizes this by saying, "The soul, then, is absorbed in divine life, withdrawn
from its natural appetites, and from all that is secular and temporal..." (John CW p.
672). The person “has become God through participation in God” (John CW p. 671).

Of John's notion of human transformation Blommestijn (2000) says, "...every

fixed point of human reference vanishes" (p. 228). It is a "transition from the senses to
the spirit" (p. 231); "the soul is purged and denuded spiritually..." (p. 232). He cites
John (John CW p. 381) as saying, "God is...conducting us along another road, the
road of contemplation" (Blommestijn 2000 p. 233). This transformation, which occurs
in the dark night, "implies a radical change of perspective...[a} turnabout by leaving
the human 'order’ for the divine order (p. 234). The senses are ”accommodated to the
spirit... [which] in turn must be accommodated to God himself, in order thus to 'arrive
at the purity of divine union' (Night II, 2, 1)" (Blommestijn 2000 p. 235). For
Blommesstijn "this transformation inevitably means a total breakdown and annihilation
of human nature" (p. 235), and thus, "mystical transformation has changed everything"
(p. 237). He refers to this: as "the all-embracing process of transformation of human
qualities in divine Love. Mystical theology is the growing contemplative consciousness
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of the workings of divine Love in all layers of the human person, annihilating every
form of selfhood' (p. 241). "Thus," he says, "we find our perfection in God" (p. 240).
Contemplation is solitary, initially purgative and eventually unitive, as is the dark
night. Contemplation is part of the activity that occurs in the dark night, or, perhaps
better said to avoid active/passive terms, contemplation is part of the dynamic of
occurrences during the dark night. John goes so far as to say that the night is
contemplation in Night, predicated on John’s title and concept where he says, "This

night...as we say is contemplation..." (John CW p. 375). John also says, "This night is
the contemplation in which the soul desires to behold these things. Because of its
obscurity, she calls contemplation night. In contemplation God teaches the soul very
quietly and secretly, without its knowing how, without the sound of words, and without
the help of any bodily or spiritual faculty, in silence and quietude, in darkness to all
sensory and natural things. Some spiritual persons call this knowing by unknowing”
(John CW p. 626).
John refers to the stages of the transformational process as that of the beginner,
the proficient, and the perfect. The beginner is one who is in the initial process of
moving from immersion in the sensory, material, natural world into purgation of the
senses. There is both an active phase of this, in which the person has agency in the
purgative process, and there is a passive phase, wherein God lures, reveals, inspires
the person to leave behind his/her own interpretations of sensory input and meaning
and to recognize God in the sense object and allow God to use and move the sensory
process. This stage of the beginner is also known as the purgative way.
The next stage, the stage of the proficient, is that of one who has made his/her
beginnings and is now in full process of spiritual transformation: mortifying the
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appetites, completing the purgation of the senses, and moving on to the purification of
the spirit. This purgation of spirit also has an active and a passive phase. In the active
phase the person is willing and in pursuit of spiritual transformation and illumination.
In the passive phase the person has done all he/she is willing and/or able to do to
purify the spiritual self, and now God takes agency in the purification and illumination
process, according to what and how he wants it to be done, not how the person has
planned for it to be done. This stage of the proficient is also known as the illuminative

way.
The final stage is that of the perfect, those who have moved completely away
from any active purification and in fact are moving from purification to perfection of
union with God. It is the arrival at the state of perfect union with God, which is done
solely through passive means of the person and active means of God. The intellect –
transformed by faith, the memory- transformed by hope, and the will – transformed
through love, all have become one with God's intellect, memory and will. The perfect
is one who has the appetite and longing of God and who lives in and as the love of
God. Spiritual perfection is the attainment of full union with God. This stage of the
perfect is also known as the unitive way.
In this stage of the perfect or the unitive way, the personality is also transformed.
Personality is that which makes the individual unique, distinguishable from God and
distinct from other humans and their own unique personalities. Personality is someone's
identity to others and is also one's own self-concept, of the self as being wholly different
than, and distinct from, others and from God. In the process of movement through these
three stages of beginner, proficient, and perfect, also known as the purgative,
illuminative, and unitive ways, this movement not only completely transforms the human
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personality throughout the process, but as the process is completed the person is
transformed from individual personality into participation in God. As Culligan
summarizes, “It is [at] this time in the process [that] the psychological ‘self’ or ‘ego’ is
lost as the person becomes one with God, but the human personality understood
philosophically and theologically remains, although now transformed into God, and
becomes ‘God by participation’ in God” (Culligan, personal communication to Kay
2004).

These ideas of self, having been formed by experiences and sensory input and
interpretation, transform as the person transforms spiritually. Senses, experiences and
the appetites which long for them are mortified in the process of transformation, and
as the person moves from active agent of his/her own transformation into passive
receptivity of God's agency, the person releases and then transforms the self, a process
which is completed when the union with God, or spiritual perfection, is complete. The
human personality must be transformed in spiritual transformation for union with God
to occur. In the night of sense this is excruciating, but in the night of spirit this is
liberating, making room for the self of God to enter the personal self, and for union to
occur. The entire self is transformed in the dark night of spiritual transformation.
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PART TWO: THE TWO THINKERS COMPARED

INTRODUCTION

Consideration of “the relationships among the disciplines concerned with

integration, particularly psychology and spirituality…lay[s] the basis for integration”,
according to Gorsuch (2002 p. 56). In the dissertation Introduction we broadly

considered the relationship between psychology and spirituality, or spiritual theology,

and in PART ONE we came to know the psychology of Jung and the theology of John.
Now we begin PART TWO of the dissertation, which specifically considers this
relationship by focus on comparison of Jung’s theory of individuation in psychology to
John’s Dark Night in spiritual theology. We will examine Jungian individuation as it
provide psychological framework for John’s understanding of spiritual transformative
process in the dark night. The spiritual process of the dark night fleshes out the
overarching framework of the psychological process of individuation
Gorsuch says that “integration of several disciplines will occur on different levels
and in different places depending on the state of development of those disciplines…it
is useful to separate two types of integration between psychology and philosophy or
theology. The first type occurs at the interdisciplinary interface. It is concerned with
commentary – hopefully with a positive attitude – of one discipline on the other
discipline, and vice versa” (p. 19). He calls this “interdisciplinary commentary, where
one discipline makes suggestions for another” (p. 56). That is the purpose of PART
TWO of this dissertation, to see how Jungian individuation makes interdisciplinary
commentary on, or suggestions for, John’s dark night, and vice versa.
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We begin by examining in Chapter Three what psychology – Jungian

individuation – provides for, or suggest to, theology – John’s dark night. In Chapter
Four we reverse the direction of consideration to examine what theology – John’s dark
night – provides for, or suggests to, psychology – Jungian individuation. In this way
our PART TWO shows what each discipline and selected texts provide for the other,
showing the purpose for integration. And, by looking in PART TWO from each
disciplinary vantage point to see what it offers the other, as Gorsuch puts it,

“These critiques remind us that neither spirituality [theology] nor science [psychology]
dictates to the other, but that each might learn more about its own tasks by hearing
what the other has to say” (p. 56).
This, says Gorsuch “lay[s] the basis for integration” (p. 56), and leads us into
the task of integration of PART THREE. In our PART THREE, we will employ what is for
Gorsuch “…the second type of integration [which] derives from a particular problem
that both disciplines join together to solve” (p. 19). The comparison, or interdisciplinary
commentary, we examine in PART TWO will enable us to “join together” the disciplines
in PART THREE to “solve” the “particular problem” of this dissertation of understanding
spiritual transformation.
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CHAPTER THREE: JUNGIAN DEPTH PSYCHOLOGY AS FRAMEWORK FOR

ST. JOHN’S SPIRITUAL THEOLOGY

The individuation process, as the way of development and maturation of

the psyche, does not follow a straight line, nor does it always lead onwards and
upwards. The course it follows is rather “stadial”, consisting of progress and
regress, flux and stagnation in alternating sequence. Only when we glance back
over a long stretch of the way can we notice the development. If we wish to mark
out the way somehow or other, it can equally well be considered a “spiral”, the
same problems and motifs occurring again and again on different levels…an
interior Odyssey…Jung spoke of it as a “labyrinthine” path…
If we now set out to observe and describe this way [of individuation] in
its various stages…we can describe it as the progressive differentiation of [one’s]
functional modes of being. We can…describe it as the systematic confrontation,
step by step, between the ego and the contents of the unconscious.

Jolande Jacobi, The Way of Individuation (1965 p. 34)

Individuation as Psychological Framework

During this change of life adjustment physically and psychically is necessary in

both forms of individuation - natural and assisted. People at different levels of maturity
traverse this transition period in different ways, and in fact this change of life is a life
transformation. The transformation can be sudden or gradual. Jacobi says, “It is a
question of moving from and ‘ego-centred’ attitude to an ego-transcending’ one, in
which the guiding principles of life are directed to something objective…from one’s
children, one’s house, one’s work to the state, humanity, God.” She goes on to say that
“The possibility of a maturation and rounding out of the psyche is in principle inherent
in every individual…The important thing is not the widened scope which consciousness
attains, but is ‘roundedness’…i.e., a state in which the greatest possible number of
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man’s hidden qualities are made conscious, his psychic capacities developed and
condensed into a unity. This is a goal which generally can be reached – if at all – only
in life’s late evening” (Jacobi 1965 pp. 24-25).

In the religious function of the psyche, the activity of the Self is

revealed in its most significant aspect, often assuming a fateful character.
The religious function is, therefore, closely bound up with the role which
the manifestation of the Self plays in every individual life. Like the Self, it
may remain unrecognized for long periods, or assume strange
“disguised” forms. It is not simply a product of the analytically assisted
individuation process, rather, it is the motor that drives a man to the
completion of his human task, and the individuation process to its
fulfillment (Jacobi 1965 p. 109).

Culligan says that this thought in Jung parallels John’s thought that the spiritual
life is a journey from self-centeredness to God-centeredness (Culligan, personal
communication to Kay 2004 cf. John CW p. 439). Jacobi’s “traversing of this transition”
in John’s terms is “ascent and descent”, according to transformation of habits, on the
“ladder of contemplation…prefigured in that ladder Jacob saw in his sleep and by
which the angels were ascending and descending from God to human beings and from
human beings to God, while God leaned on the top [Gn. 28: 12-13]. Scriptures say
that all this happened at night, while Jacob was sleeping, to disclose how secret is the
way and ascent to God and how it differs from human knowledge” (John CW pp. 439-
40). This essential parallel of thought provides a foundational starting point for us to
examine the relationship between Jungian individuation and John’s dark night, and to
see how individuation provides a framework for the spirituality of John.
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John’s way of characterizing Jacobi’s notion of “religious attitude” is that the

spiritual process of contemplation shines light on the ladder of spiritual transformation,
accomplished in the dark night through love which elevates us to God.

…[T]he principal property involved in calling contemplation a “ladder”

is its being a science of love, which as we said is an infused loving knowledge
that both illumines and enamors the soul, elevating it step by step to God, its
Creator. For it is only love that unites and joins the soul to God (John CW p.
440).

From this foundational understanding we will examine five specific major ways in which
individuation provides the psychological framework for John’s theology.

The First Frame: Individuation as Contemporary Framework for Historic

Religious and Cultural Process

In The Psychology of C.G. Jung Jacobi says:

We find countless historical parallels to the whole individuation process. The

psychic transformation revealed to Western man by Jung’s analytical
psychology is, fundamentally, a “natural analogue of the religious initiation
ceremonies”12 of all the ages, the only difference being that the rites of initiation
use traditional prescriptions and symbols, while the Jungian individuation
process tries to achieve its goal by a natural production of symbols, that is, a
spontaneous movement of the psyche. The analogy is illustrated by the
innumerable initiation rites of primitive peoples, by the Buddhist and Tantric
forms of Yoga, or the exercises of Ignatius of Loyola. Of course all such
endeavors bear the stamp of their times and the people to whom they belong.
All have their own cultural premises and accordingly their relevance to the

12
Here Jacobi quotes Jung in his “Psychological Commentary on The Tibetan Book of the
Dead”, par. 854.
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present is only that of a historical and structural parallel. They cannot be directly
applied to the modern man, and it is only in their basic principles that they are
comparable to Jung’s conception of individuation. But what distinguishes most of
them from his method is chiefly this: either they were religious acts or else they
were expected to lead to a particular Weltanschauung which was represented
in them, whereas in the Jungian individuation process the work on the psyche
paves the way for a spiritual-ethical-religious order which is the consequence and
not the content of the preparation, and which must be chosen consciously and
freely by the individual (Jacobi 1973 pp. 141-2).

It is stunning to see the individuation process as a modern version of the

historically omnipresent theme of human “psychic transformation”. In this view of
individuation we see two primary ways in which it provides ideal contemporary
framework for John’s Dark Night. The first way, or frame, is that, when Jacobi says,
“They cannot be directly applied to the modern man…” she is by implication saying
that Jung’s way of expressing the psychic transformation process as individuation is
most applicable to the process in contemporary times. She is in fact saying that “Jung’s
analytical psychology” itself reveals the psychic transformation process to “Western
man”. The spiritual transformation process we are examining in this dissertation is
constituent to the psychic transformation process, so individuation provides the
foundational, or framing, transformation process.
Having established that foundational constituency of spiritual transformation we
can begin to see that John’s dark night is a detailed process of how spiritual
transformation occurs and how, stage by stage, the person progresses through it and
what the person experiences – both of self and of God – when one passes through
these stages. Also, because Jung’s individuation is seen as the most applicable to
modern contemporary “Western man” it provides a vehicle for contemporizing John’s
sixteenth century thought.
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The Second Frame: Individuation as Psychic Transformation Frames

Spiritual Transformation

The second way individuation provides contemporary framework for John’s dark
night is that, as Jacobi says, “in the Jungian individuation process the work on the
psyche paves the way for a spiritual-ethical-religious order which is the consequence
and not the content of the preparation…” That is, it is the psychic transformative process
in the psyche, which lends itself to, or is precursor of, the spiritual transformation
process. Jacobi is saying that in Jungian individuation the process is a psychic process,
and spirituality, ethics, and religion are contents being transformed by the process. In
this way Jacobi says individuation stands in contrast to historical “rites of initiation,
because historically it has been religious practice and ‘contents’ which have been
thought to spur on psychic transformation. Here again we see the psychic
transformation process of individuation – which sets the framework for processing
spiritual contents – as setting the framework for John’s dark night of spiritual
transformation. Other noteworthy points Jacobi makes include the fact that “religious

initiation ceremonies” all have their own cultural/religious premises so the ceremonies
are supposed to lead the person being initiated into that cultural/religious worldview.

The Third Frame: Individuation as Individual Choice Frames Collective

Religious/Social/Cultural and Spiritual Transformation

The religious or cultural initiation prepares or chooses the initiate for the
religious/cultural result, whereas in the individuation process the individuator chooses
“consciously and freely” to individuate and, if so, how the individuator will participate
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in religion and culture. The importance of both consciousness and choice will be
discussed in depth subsequently.
The initiate is not discovering his/her own psychic contents or processes,
but is taking on collective contents (religion/culture/tradition) through traditionally
established processes. In the Introduction to this dissertation we say that for Jung when
the individual is subsumed into society “the one source of spiritual and moral progress
for society is choked up.” Jung is clear throughout his corpus that it is at best not

desirable, and at worst dangerous, for the individual to be absorbed into – taken over
by – society.
In fact, of the way of individuation of the individual, Jacobi says that in Jung’s
theory, “Personality can never develop unless one chooses one’s own way consciously
and makes this an ethical decision…And without conscious decision the development
[of the personality] would remain a dull, unconscious automatism…the other ways are
conventions of a moral, social, political, philosophical, or religious nature…” (Jacobi
1965 p. 82). “Jung attributes a key importance to the individual. According to him,
only a change in the attitude of the individual can initiate a change in the psychology
of nations” (Jacobi 1965 pp. 84). Jung himself, cited in Jacobi (1965 pp. 84-5) says:

The great events of world history are, at bottom, profoundly unimportant.

In the last analysis, the essential thing is the life of the individual. This alone
makes history, here alone do the great transformations first take place, and the
whole future, the whole history of the world, ultimately springs as a gigantic
summation from these hidden sources in individuals. In our most private and most
subjective lives we are not only the passive witnesses of our age, and its sufferers,
but also its makers (Jung CW Vol. 10 p. 149).

Virtually everything depends on the human psyche and its functions. It

should be worthy of all the attention we can give it, especially today, when
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everyone admits that the weal and woe of the future will be decided neither by
the threat of wild animals, nor by natural catastrophes, nor by the danger of
worldwide epidemics, but simply and solely by the psychic changes in man (Jung
CW Vol. 10 p. 291).

However, Jung repudiates the extreme form of individualism, which makes the
individual way the norm, and conflicts with the collective norm. Rather, he says that the
individuated person, well-anchored in his own Self, makes his relation to society in
Jacobi’s words (1965 p. 87) “to his fellow men…deeper, more tolerant, more
responsible, and more understanding. He can open himself to them with greater
freedom, since he need not fear that they will take possession of him, or that he will
lose himself in them. In this sense Jung says, ‘Individuation does not shut one out from
the world, but gathers the world to oneself’” (Jacobi 1965 p. 87 citing Jung “On the
Nature of the Psyche” p. 226 [1960 Jung CW Vol. 8]). The individual personality, then,
must develop a matured relation to one’s self, which then matures one in relation to
society.
Jacobi summarizes by saying, “The often heard objection that individuation
leads to individualism, egocentredness, eccentricity, etc., confuses individuation with a
one-sided introversion. In individuation, inside and outside must both be given their due;

it expresses, in Jung’s words, a ‘successful adaptation to the universal conditions of

existence coupled with the greatest possible freedom for self-determination’ (Jacobi
1965 p. 89 citing Jung, The Development of the Personality, p. 171). It involves an
attitude that can best be adopted by one who knows from personal experience to what
degree the part is always obligated to the whole and yet remains a whole itself” (1965
p. 89). Jung uses the symbol of the tree to describe the healthy balance of psychic
development, as Jacobi says, “Just as a high-standing tree, through its deep-reaching,
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wide-spreading roots, finds firm support in the earth that all trees share, so wherever
healthy life prevails a regulating balance-producing movement sets in. This is true also
of the life of the psyche. And indeed the tree, with its upward and downward growth
and its seasonal transformations, is often used as a symbol for the transformative
processes of the psyche” (Jacobi 1965 p. 90 citing “the various aspects of the tree
symbol…discussed by Jung in ‘The Philosophical Tree’, Alchemical Studies, CW Vol.
13).
Balanced psychic transformation, then, is the framework in which spiritual
transformation can occur. So, spiritual transformation is a component part of overall
psychic transformation and balance. As Jacobi puts it:

Not only is the individual placed between the power of consciousness

and that of his unconscious psyche, he is also a unique, unrepeatable being and
at the same time a member of the collective and has to do justice to both. So far
as analytically assisted individuation process is concerned, no general rules can
be laid down for dealing with this relationship. For on the one hand, it is said,
man is a herd animal and reaches full health only as a social being, and on the
other hand the very next case may invert this proposition and demonstrate that
he is fully healthy only when he deviates from the norm and aims only at himself,
that is, when he pursues his own individual way. For only as a “healthy” person
can he live in accordance with his God-given task (1965 p. 84).

It is from this third frame that this dissertation views the relationship of the
individual to society, which is a discussion greater than the scope of this project. Seen
from the vantage point of the personal process of spiritual transformation as part of a
balanced psychic transformative state, as the person matures in psychic balance and
awareness and in spiritual maturity, personal behavior matures to be more balanced
and more matured in social participation and relations. In terms of Jung’s tree
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metaphor, as the root system forms and stabilized, and the give-and-take flow moves
fluidly through the trunk, the tree can grow and mature into the world, and the roots
continue corresponding maturation. The seedling has to evolve and mature into a tree
in order to individuate as a tree and to participate as a tree in the world. If its being is
unbalanced or immature so will be its existence in the world.
Jacobi continues to explain that the healthiest person is able to maintain a state
of psychic balance, in which spiritual growth, transformation and evolution can occur,

and that this person is enabled to be his/her fullest self in the world and participate in
the most evolved ways in worldly activity. The healthiest person psychically can become
the healthiest spiritually and interact in the most healthy and matured way in society.
This matured relation of person to society was discussed and summarized in the
last section of the dissertation introduction as “a new individual vision based on and
effected by the process of inner spiritual transformation,” here in the third frame being
framed by the context of psychic transformation, “which re-orders and right-orders
personal motives and activities which will manifest in society as being rooted in the
Divine. The process of [psychic and] spiritual transformation first heals and changes
consciousness of the individual person, who then in the process of social and relational
participation externally heals and changes consciousness of society and its
institutions.”13

13
The dissertation introduction discusses this topic relative to this project. For additional
discussion the reader is referred to Transformation and Maturation and Responsibility Rests
with the Individual, in the section titled “The Practical Application of Jung’s Theory” in Jacobi’s
The Psychology of C.G. Jung (1973 pp. 148-52).
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The Fourth Frame: Individuation As Psychic Process of Consciousness

Frames Receipt Of God’s Agency and Input Into Spiritual Transformation

The fourth way in which individuation provides a framework for spiritual

transformation is that of psychic transformative process as framework for receipt of
God’s agency, or as process of consciousness of God’s input into the person. Jung said,
writing in 1947 in the time of WWII, “The individuation process is, psychically, a
borderline phenomenon which needs special conditions in order to become conscious.
Perhaps it is a first step along a path of development to be trodden by the men of the
future – a path which, for the time being, has taken a pathological turn and landed
Europe in a catastrophe” (Jacobi 1965 p. 86 citing Jung, “On the Nature of the
Psyche”, Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, CW Vol. 8 pp. 225-6).
And Jacobi continues, “Nevertheless the growing longing of man for a better
understanding of himself and the world allows one to hope that he will one day manage
to cope more effectively with all the evil and destructiveness that rise up out of the
abysses of his soul. Those who are not seized by this longing, but find safety and
security in the masses, will never be ready to follow consciously the way of
individuation, since to begin with it spells isolation for the individual. It is as though he
were a mountain whose peak is the more isolated the higher it reaches; yet at its deeper
levels it shares the same earth with all other mountains” (1965 p. 86).
Jung’s psychotherapeutic, as does most schools of psychotherapy, holds that the
task of the therapist – or in Jung’s terminology, the analyst – is to assist the
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client/patient14 or analysand15 in individuation, in bringing unconscious contents of the

psyche to consciousness. Consciousness of personal unconscious contents enables the
individuator to become more fully integrated and whole as a person. Consciousness of
impersonal, collective unconscious contents enables the individuator to become aware
that, and how, society impacts him/her, and then of how the individuator relates to
society and its culture. Jacobi describes this clearly and succinctly:

From the point of view of psychological development, the field of

consciousness is extended through the analytical work by investigating and
elucidating the material that comes up from the unconscious realm and
associating it with consciousness. Extension of consciousness by supplementary
material plus maturation by experience result in the development of the
individual. In this process “conscious realization”, also stipulated by other
psychotherapeutic schools, is the ruling principle. The conscious realization of
unconscious contents, their retention in consciousness, is the sine qua non of
psychic development. “Conscious realization is culture in the broadest sense,
and self-knowledge is therefore the heat and essence of this process,” says Jung
(1961 p. 300). Nevertheless Jung’s view differs from that of other schools in that
it is founded on the experience that the psyche, unless it is blocked by special
circumstances, will spontaneously produce everything that is needed for the
fulfillment of individual development” (Jacobi 1965 p. 91).

14
The term “client” is used in psychology to refer to the person seeing the psychotherapist, and
is a more contemporary term, from the modern rise of psychology and to eliminate the
assumption that the person seeing the therapist is ill. The term “patient” is used in medicine,
including psychiatry, to refer to the (most often) sick person seeing the doctor, and is a
traditional term from medicine. Although Jung speaks of psychotherapy, he does so as a
medical doctor, and uses the term “patient”, whereas we today would more accurately speak
of the “client” of the psychotherapist.

15
The psychologist or psychiatrist who practices analytical psychotherapy is called the analyst,
and the client or patient the analysand, or one who is being analyzed.
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What distinguishes Jungian individuation according to Jacobi is “…that the

psyche…will spontaneously produce everything that is needed for the fulfillment of
individual development.” By this Jung meant that, as we began to understand in
Chapter One, the process of individuation is a spontaneous, or natural, process of the
human person. The statement by Jacobi adds to our understanding of the innately
occurring nature of the process, that “everything” which is necessary for conscious
realization, and the process of conscious realization itself is concomitantly innate,

constitutive, and organic to the individuator. That is, it is the nature of the person, in
Jung’s view, to individuate, to put the self into proper relation with society, and for the
personal consciousness to become conscious, or aware, of both personal and collective
unconscious contents.
The relation of the conscious and unconscious, and the dynamics of this relation
for the person, is masterfully described by Jacobi.

In the dialectical process between consciousness and the contents of the

unconscious psyche…the more [the person] perceives his unconscious
qualities…the greater is his chance of gaining self-knowledge and accepting
these projections as part of himself, withdrawing them and thus extending the
scope of his field of consciousness. Above all the withdrawal of impersonal,
archetypal projections and their conscious assimilation bring about an
increase in knowledge and have a considerable effect on the ego
personality, especially if the latter was hitherto unable to distinguish itself
critically from the emergent contents that needed integrating…
There is an uninterrupted reciprocal action between the products of
the unconscious psyche…and other such uncontrolled psychic
phenomena, on the one hand, and consciousness struggling to understand
and integrate them, on the other (Jacobi 1965 p. 93).
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This is consistent with most other psychotherapeutic approaches, as we discussed

above, but it is critical to highlight this process as described in Jung’s therapeutic
approach to and understanding of the human person, not only because of the crucial
role it plays in his theory of individuation, but also because of the role it plays in Jung’s
idea of psychological correspondence of the individual soul to what he calls, “the
archetype of the God-image” (Jung CW Vol. 12 par. 11) or imago dei16.
Being mindful of Jung’s standpoint as psychological phenomenologist observing

religious contents, for example, God, in the psyche, rather than arguing for the
existence of God or for or against the value of religion itself, we proceed to see how
Jung observed the psychodynamic of “correspondence” between the soul and the God-
image in the psyche, or what object-relations psychologist and spiritual directors might
call the dynamic of God-relationality. Jung argues against the Western notion that the
soul has little value, and that “anything psychic is only Nature and therefore, people
think, nothing religious can come out of it” (Jung CW Vol. 12 par. 9, italics Jung). We
must note in this particular passage what Jung means by “soul”, according to the
editors, in a footnote to this passage.

[In the previous translations, and in this one as well, “psyche” – for which
Jung in the German original uses either Psyche or Seele – has been used with
reference to the totality of all psychic processes…i.e., it is a comprehensive term.
“Soul,” on the other hand, as used in the technical terminology of analytical
psychology, is more restricted in meaning and refers to a “function complex” or
partial personality and never to the whole psyche. It is often applied specifically
to “anima” and “animus”; e.g., in this connection it is used in the composite word

16
This concept of imago dei has evolved in such a way that it is today substantially present in
psychological/psychoanalytical object-relations theory, and in the subfield of psychology of
religion.
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“soul-image”…This conception of the soul is more primitive than the Christian one
with which the reader is likely to be more familiar. In its Christian context it refers
to “the transcendental energy in man” and “the spiritual part of man considered
in its moral aspect or in relation to God”…
[In the above passage in the text (and in similar passages), “soul” is used
in a non-technical sense (i.e., it does not refer to “animus” or “anima”), nor does
it refer to the transcendental conception, but to a psychic (phenomenological)
fact of a highly numinous character. This usage is adhered to except when the
context shows clearly that the term is used in the Christian or Neoplatonic sense.
– Editors.]

Jung continues, “It is a telling fact that two theological reviewers of my book
Psychology and Religion – one of them Catholic, the other protestant – assiduously
overlooked my demonstration of the psychic origin of religious phenomena” (Jung CW
Vol. 12 par. 9). He begins to reveal the psychodynamics of the soul, beneath religious
projections.

Faced with this situation, we must really ask: How do we know so

much about the psyche that we can say “only” psychic”? For this is how
Western man, whose soul is evidently “of little worth,” speaks and thinks.
If much were in his soul he would speak of it with reverence. But since he
does not do so we can only conclude that there is nothing of value in it.
Not that this is necessarily so always and everywhere, but only with
people who put nothing into their souls and have “all God outside (Jung
CW Vol. 12 par. 10)…
An exclusively religious projection may rob the soul of its values so that
through sheer inanition it becomes incapable of further development and gets
stuck in an unconscious state….But if the soul no longer has any part to play,
religious life congeals into externals and formalities….it has the dignity of an
entity endowed with consciousness of a relationship to Deity…(Jung CW Vol. 12
par. 11).
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We have heard previously of Jung’s symbol of the tree, and his analogy of
individuation and psychic development or self-realization of the person as a mountain,
and now we will see we see that Jung makes the analogy of the eye of the soul
perceiving God as the sun, and explains his idea of the relation of the conscious to the
unconscious, in terms of the conscious ego self becoming aware of the unconscious,
spiritual self. At the same time he states his conviction that spiritual awareness is a
primary task of psychology.

As the eye to the sun, so the soul corresponds to God. Since our conscious mind
does not comprehend the soul it is ridiculous to speak of the things of the soul in
a patronizing or depreciatory manner. Even the believing Christian does not
know God’s hidden ways and must leave him to decide whether he will work on
man from outside or from within, through the soul. So the believer should not
boggle at the fact that there are…dreams sent by God…and illuminations of the
soul which cannot be traced back to any external causes. It would be blasphemy
to assert that God can manifest himself everywhere save only in the human soul.
Indeed the very intimacy of the relationship between God and the soul precludes
from the start any devaluation of the latter…It would be going perhaps too far
to speak of an affinity; but at all events the soul must contain in itself the faculty
of relationship to God, i.e. a correspondence, otherwise a connection could
never come about…this correspondence is, in psychological terms, the
archetype of the God-image (par. 11).
Every archetype is capable of endless development and differentiation.
It is therefore possible for it to be more developed or less. In an outward form
of religion where all the emphasis is on the outward figure (hence where we are
dealing with a more or less complete projection), the archetype is identical with
externalized ideas but remains unconscious as a psychic factor…(par. 12)
Yet when I point out that the soul possesses by nature a religious function,
and when I stipulate that it is the prime task of all education (of adults) to convey
the archetype of the God-image, or its emanations and effects, to the conscious
mind, then it is precisely the theologian who seizes me by the arm and accuses
me of “psychologism.” But were it not a fact of experience that supreme values
reside in the soul…psychology would not interest me in the least, for the soul
would then be nothing but a miserable vapour. I know, however, from
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hundredfold experience that it is nothing of the sort, but on the contrary contains
the equivalents of everything that has been formulated in dogma and a good
deal more, which is just what enables it to be an eye destined to behold the light.
This requires limitless range and unfathomable depth of vision. I have been
accused of “deifying the soul.” Not I but God himself has deified it! I did not
attribute a religious function to the soul, I merely produced the facts which prove
that the soul…possesses a religious function. I did not invent or insinuate this
function, it produces itself of its own accord without being prompted thereto by
any opinions or suggestions of mine. With a truly tragic delusion these
theologians fail to see that it is not a matter of proving the existence of the light,
but of blind people who do not know that their eyes could see. It is high time we
realized that it is pointless to praise the light and preach it if nobody can see it.
It is much more needful to teach people the art of seeing. For it is
obvious that far too many people are incapable of establishing a connection
between the sacred figures and their own psyche: they cannot see to what extent
the equivalent images are lying dormant in their own unconscious. In order to
facilitate this inner vision we must first clear the way for the faculty of seeing.
How this is to be done without psychology, that is, without making contact with
the psyche, is frankly beyond my comprehension (with footnote 8: Since it is a
question here of human effort, I leave aside acts of grace which are beyond
man’s control)… (par. 14, bold Kay)…
…Psychology is concerned with the act of seeing and not with the
construction of new religious truths…In religious matters it is a well-known fact
that we cannot understand a thing until we have experienced it inwardly, for it
is in the inward experience that the connection between the psyche and the
outward image or creed is first revealed as a relationship or a
correspondence...Accordingly when I say as a psychologist that God is an
archetype, I mean by that the “type” in the psyche. The word “type” is, as we
know, derived from [the Greek word for] “blow” or “imprint”; thus an archetype
presupposes an imprinter. Psychology as the science of the soul has to confine
itself to its subject and guard against overstepping its proper boundaries by
metaphysical assertions or other professions of faith…We simply do not know
the ultimate derivation of the archetype any more than we know the origin of the
psyche (par. 15)…
…The religious-minded man is free to accept whatever metaphysical
explanations he pleases about the origin of these images; not so the intellect,
which must keep strictly to the principles of scientific interpretation and avoid
trespassing beyond the bounds of what can be known…The scientist is a
scrupulous worker; he cannot take heaven by storm. Should he allow himself to
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be seduced into such an extravagance he would be sawing off the branch on

which he sits (par. 16).
The fact is that with the knowledge and actual experience of these inner
images a way is opened for reason and feeling to gain access to those other
images which the teachings of religion offer to mankind. Psychology thus does
just the opposite of what it is accused of: it provides possible approaches to a
better understanding of these things, it opens people’s eyes to the real meaning
of dogmas, and, far from destroying, it throws open an empty house to new
inhabitants (par. 17)…(Jung CW Vol. 12 pars. cited above in text).

Jung shows how psychology understands the psychic framework of the person

in which spiritual and religious contents are processed. He is clear to distinguish the
psychological understanding of archetypal contents of the psyche from the contents
themselves, and shows us clearly how his individuating person, in the course of psychic
transformation, processes spiritual contents, the imago dei, God-image or imprint, or
God’s input, into the psyche. He shows us that the conscious mind can and does come
to understand unconscious spiritual contents in the psyche.
Jung shows the psychic correspondence between the individualized soul and
the impersonal archetype of the God-image. It is as this correspondence develops that
psychic transformation occurs in the previously discussed constant interplay of conscious
and unconscious. The fact that, as in this case, the contents of the psychic transformation
are spiritual (our term)/religious (Jung’s term) contents, then we see that a spiritual
transformation has occurred within the framework of the process of psychic
transformation. The person has become more conscious of the internal correspondence,
or relationship of the soul to, in Jung’s terms, “the archetype of the God-image”, or in
the church’s terms, to God.
Jung argues that this psychic transformation of conscious awareness must take
place for the archetype (of the God-image, or God) to become internalized to the
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personal self, rather than remaining an externalized religious projection. For Jung the
internalization of religious symbols such as the God-image must occur for the individual
to have the actual experience of religious contents of the psyche, and this, for Jung, is
how and where personal religious experience, or in our terms spiritual transformation,
is found. When it is only experienced as externalized religious projection – as in
historical religious and cultural rites of initiation, or in any religious practice – then
according to Jung it is only cultural compliance and religious dogma, empty of human

meaning. Meaning, for Jung, is in inner human experience, which he says occurs
psychologically through the process of consciousness in psychic transformation.
Spiritual transformation occurs as consciousness of spiritual contents, such as the God-
image, in the framework of psychic transformation, which is constituent to the
individuation process. This was Jung’s professional experience and analysis, as well as
personal experience and conviction.
In her introduction to Jung’s autobiography which she recorded and edited,
Aniela Jaffé says that it “…transmit[s] the atmosphere of his intellectual world and the
experience of a man to whom the psyche was a profound reality…Only the spiritual
essence of life’s experience remained in his memory and this alone seemed to him worth
the effort of telling” (Jung 1963 pp. vii-viii Jaffé Introduction). Jung himself said, “only
what is interior has proved to have substance and a determining value” (Jung 1963 p.
ix Jaffé Introduction). He wrote his autobiography in 1957 at age 81, at the very end
of his career and life, and was finalizing the manuscript until his death in 1961.
Jaffé continues that, “He was well aware that the patient’s religious attitude plays
a crucial part in the therapy of psychic illnesses. This observation coincided with his
discovery that the psyche spontaneously produces images with a religious content, that
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it is ‘by nature religious’” (Jung 1963 p. x Jaffé Introduction citing Jung). This was

Jung’s testimony to the veracity of his theory of individuation, and it enables us to see
his theory clearly as the psychic transformational framework in which spiritual
transformation occurs, or needs to occur. Jaffé states unequivocally that in his work and
life “Jung explicitly declared his allegiance to Christianity, and the most important of
his works deal with the religious problems of the Christian. He looked at these questions
from the standpoint of psychology, deliberately setting a bound between it and the
theological approach. In so doing he stressed the necessity of understanding and
reflecting, as against the Christian demand for faith. He took this necessity for granted,
as one of the essential features of life” (Jung 1963 p. xi Jaffé Introduction). Once again,
Jung uses the analogy of the eye or psyche, in relation to the sun, or archetype of God-
image, or God, when Jaffé quotes Jung at 76 as having written to a young clergyman
in 1952, “I find that all my thoughts circle around God like the planets around the sun,
and are as irresistibly attracted by Him. I would feel it to be the grossest sin if I were to
oppose any resistance to this force” (Jung 1963 p. xi Jaffé Introduction).
Jaffé says Jung was “at pains to use the term ‘the God-image in the human
psyche’…in the objective language of scientific inquiry” throughout his career,
reserving the term “God” for his inner, subjective world. This he speaks of only at the
end of his life, and it is only in his autobiography. Throughout his enormous scientific
corpus he uses objective, scientific language. Jung’s scientific, objective framework of
psychic transformation of the relationship of the intellect, or consciousness, to
unconscious God-images in the human psyche, sets the framework for understanding
God’s input into the psyche, which we have understood as John’s dark night. In his
autobiography Jung expressed, in Jaffé’s words, “the disappointment of an investigator
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who felt that his religious ideas were not properly understood…Only since his death
have theologians in increasing numbers begun to say that Jung was indubitably an
outstanding figure in the religious history of our century” (Jung 1963 pp. x-xi Jaffé
Introduction).
When Jacobi speaks of the unconscious/conscious relationship, that is, of
conscious realization, she speaks of their dialectical relationship and its function in
individuation. “As between consciousness and the unconscious, so a dialectical
relationship also exists between turning inwards and conscious participation in the inner
happenings, and turning outwards and consolidation of what has been won in the
outside world…To surrender oneself to both realms is essential to the full experience of
the individuation process” (Jacobi 1965 p. 99). And she cites Jung as emphasizing
expressly that: “The new thing never came exclusively either from within or from
without. If it came from outside, it became a profound inner experience; if it came from
inside it became an outer happening. In no case was it conjured into existence
intentionally or by conscious willing, but seemed rather to be borne along on the stream
of time” (Jung CW Vol. 13 par. 18 cited in Jacobi 1965 p. 99).
When she says, “…turning inwards and conscious participation in the inner
happenings…” we can consider “turning inwards” to be her term for the process of
recollection which we discussed earlier. “Conscious participation in the inner
happenings,” we can consider to be her shorthand for Jung’s psychoanalytical goal of
the analysand – or our individuator – becoming conscious of unconscious contents of
the psyche, where “inner happenings” take place. She highlights three crucial elements
in this passage. First, the dialectic between the conscious and the unconscious is crucial
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to our understanding of psychic transformation, and with it occurs spiritual

transformation via the same dialectical process but with specifically spiritual contents.
A second crucial dynamic of psychic functioning is essential to the overarching
purpose of this dissertation – to move this work toward development of
psychotherapeutic understanding of, and approach to, spiritual transformation. We
have seen that spiritual transformation is a process, and is constituent to the psychic
transformation process, but here we see that the process is influenced bi-directionally.

That is, although spiritual transformation is an inner process, it can occur internally first
in time, and then next in time the person’s outer world is affected; or there can be an
external event that is impetus for inner transformative process. In both cases the
transformation itself is internal, but the impetus for the transformation can come from
within or without. In Jungian psychological terms this is the way in which the individual
relates to self and society, culture, and religion, and to the “religious function of the
psyche.” In John’s spiritual theology this can either be the agency of the person to
actively cause movement, or can be the agency of God to passively cause movement.
The third crucial element is that of time. The “profound inner experience” not
only happens in time but also is the product of the passage of time, and in particular
the time it takes for experiential happenings in both directions. John touches on this
temporal aspect of transformation in at least two ways: one is by describing the spiritual
transformative process as development from beginner on the spiritual path, to proficient
in spiritual practice, to perfect in love and union with God; two, by describing both
active and passive phases of the dark night, of sense and of spirit. In the active phase
the person’s agency toward his/her inner self is operant, whereas in the passive phase
personal agency is dormant while God’s agency becomes operant toward the inner
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self of the person. And, although not identical to Jung’s inner experience/outer
happening dialectic, John’s active/passive dark night phases are very similar in process
and direction. We will see John’s dialectic in more detail in the next chapter. For John,
via the dark night, the overall spiritual transformation process takes place in time, over
the course of the life span, as it does for Jung through the individuation process over
the life span.
Jacobi says, “Nothing can be gained in individuation by force of will or by

preconceived opinions; our task consists simply and solely in keeping the conscious
mind constantly on the alert, so that as many of the unconscious portions of the
personality as possible can be made conscious, experienced, and integrated” (1965
p. 98). She also cites Jung’s thinking that “the needful thing is not to ‘know’ the truth
but to experience it. Not to have an intellectual conception of things, but to find our
way to the inner, perhaps wordless, irrational experiences – that is the heart of the
problem” (Jung, Seelenprobleme der Gegenwart, p. v preface, cited in Jacobi 1965
p. 98).
The Fifth Frame: Individuation As Life Span Temporal Frame for the Dark
Night as Life Event or Passage

This leads us to discuss the fifth major way in which Jungian individuation
provides a framework for St. John’s dark night. We have just looked at the temporal
nature of individuation as a process occurring over the course of the life span. For Jung
it is a process that begins at birth, matures, transitions in mid-life, matures, and ends at
the death of the individual. Though episodes throughout the course of the life contribute
to it and affect it, individuation is not regarded as episodic, or event-specific, but rather
as a life-long maturation process of self-realization.
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Although, as we have said, for John the spiritual transformation process is a life-
long passage through phases of spiritual development, the dark night transition from
phase to phase is episodic. It is in passing through one or many dark nights that the
person transforms from one spiritual developmental phase into the next. The dark night
is transformative, can be of sense or spirit, and can occur innumerable times throughout
the life course, but it in itself is an episode, or event, in the overall life course of the
individual’s spiritual transformation.

This is perhaps the primary way in which these two concepts – Jung’s
psychological concept (and professional and personal experience) of individuation
across the life span, and John’s theological concept (and personal and professional
experience) of the events/episodes of the dark nights – dovetail to form a more
comprehensive understanding of spiritual transformation throughout the life, as
experienced in a life event, and as processed psychologically and theologically. In this
way at this dovetailing juncture we see how theological contents and processes are
experienced in the psyche of the person in the individual’s overall natural life process
of psychic, that is, psychological, transformation. We see how the spiritual nature of
psychic contents is transformed spiritually through psychological process. We see the
person in psychological and spiritual relation to God, and God to the person, in the
dialectic of consciousness with the unconscious. In the next chapter we will examine
how John’s dark night fleshes out Jungian individuation framework.
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CHAPTER FOUR: ST. JOHN’S SPIRITUAL THEOLOGY ENHANCING

JUNGIAN PSYCHOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK

Yet until a soul is placed by God in the passive purgation of that dark
night, which we will soon explain, it cannot purify itself completely of these
imperfections or others. But people should insofar as possible strive to do their
part in purifying and perfecting themselves and thereby merit God’s divine cure.
In this cure God will heal them of what through their own efforts they were unable
to remedy. No matter how much individuals do through their own efforts, they
cannot actively purify themselves enough to be disposed in the least degree for
the divine union of the perfection of love. God must take over and purge them
in that fire that is dark for them, as we will explain.

St. John of the Cross, The Dark Night (John CW pp. 366-7)

The Dark Night as Theological Enhancement of Psychological Framework

As John’s consideration of the dark night begins not with beginners but with those
in the process of movement from beginner to proficient, we must begin our
consideration of the dark night as enhancement for Jungian individuation framework
with a brief discussion of the very beginning of the spiritual life, and movement between
that very beginning and where John begins. Doohan says, “John of the Cross focuses
his skills as a spiritual director on those Christians who have made a determined
commitment to give their lives to the Lord. His own life situation and most of his work
was with religious. John gives no attention to…the early stages of…spiritual
training…’beginners’ for John refers to those who already have a certain degree of
dedication (at least compared with their former state of alienation from God) – they
have started the journey…John shows little concern for this group in his writing, and
does not discuss it at any length as a separate stage in the spiritual journey (except
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briefly in Book One of the Ascent and the early chapter of the Night)…John is a

specialist in the later stages of the spiritual life” (Doohan 1995 p. 63).
John apparently distinguishes the early stage of life, of “alienation from God”,
as the sense life, and thinks of beginners as being in this lamentable state. In order to
teach that this “period of remote preparation” (Doohan 1995 p. 64) is childish and
imperfect, when he does refer to beginners he does so negatively. It appears he
regards the spiritual life as commencing when the beginner undertakes the active night
of sense, and his writings begin to focus on the passive night of sense, continuing
through the active and passive nights of spirit, until perfection – union with God – is
attained. Because of where his writings begin – at the point in the life of the person, or
directee, after which the person has consciously chosen to pursue the spiritual life and
is looking for direction as to how to do so. Because his work as spiritual director was
with persons in this consciously chosen and directed mode, his writings deal only
occasionally referentially with those in the sense life, and with those in the sense life
who eventually make the decision to pursue the spiritual life.
“The targeted audience for John’s writings are not beginners in the spiritual life.
John in fact has little to say to them; his concern is to lead beginners as quickly as
possible into the full life of the Spirit, which is contemplation. This path alone leads to
divine union, which is the ultimate goal of all his direction. John is ‘a specialist in the
later stages of the spiritual life’” (Doohan 1995 p. xiv Larkin Preface). In the dissertation
introduction and methodology we said that John’s dark night was chosen because of
its specificity of spiritual theological content and of spiritual transformative process,
which we must now contextualize as happening in the later stages of the spiritual life.
As we now come to analyzing and including that level of specificity in our spiritual
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fleshing out of the psychological framework, we extend the scope of our understanding
of the dark night to include those persons who have not yet entered and experienced
any night, who have not yet made a choice to pursue spiritual development. We will
include our hereby-established consideration of the very “beginners” in our fleshing out
the framework in this chapter, and this broadened consideration will follow throughout
the balance of the dissertation: in the theory, in the model, and in conclusions,
implications, and recommendations.

These persons fully in the sense life, “beginners” in the strictest Sanjuanist17 terms,
either not yet making their way toward the spiritual life or approaching their first steps
in the spiritual journey through the active night of sense, we must now include in our
theory as part of John’s understanding of the spiritual journey, because their place and
process can be understood in the overarching framework of Jungian individuation, as
taking place from birth, throughout all psychic transformation – including spiritual
transformation – until death. The issue of choice of the spiritual path is beyond the
scope of this dissertation, although it is hoped that this work will serve as foundational
for further explication of this issue of choice, but we will see that it is necessary to
include all persons, having chosen the path or not, in our consideration of the full course
of the life. And, we will see that spiritual transformation can only occur when the person
chooses to allow it, in a way similar to that in which the person can undergo
psychological transformation only when the person is accepting of it. Finally, we will
see that the farther along the spiritual path the person chooses to go, the more intense
the dark night and experience of spiritual transformation becomes, and the more focus
and detail John provides for us to understand it.

17
A person who studies or follows St. John of the Cross can be known as a “Sanjuanist”.
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This is the primary reason why St. John’s works in spiritual direction flesh out
Jung’s psychological framework of the person. Jung is looking at all persons, whether
they have consciously, deliberately chosen the spiritually developmental path or not,
and if so, regardless of where persons may be and how they may be progressing on
that kind of path. Jung considers all persons on all chosen paths, in any phase of
progress on that path, putting that person’s path – conscious, spiritual, or not – in the
broader context of individuation as the life framework of persons. John, as Larkin

(above) succinctly puts it, focuses his primary attention on spiritual direction “in the
latter stages of the spiritual life”. In order to get to those latter stages John first does
describe beginning and intermediate stages, particularly in Ascent, but in his Dark Night
he describes passages between stages, and particularly the latter stages.
Because the tradition of spiritual direction is dealing with “religious” persons,
that is, persons such as monks and nuns, who have already consciously decided to
actively pursue personal spiritual development, John’s work in spiritual direction lends
itself in at least two major ways to our goal of a broader and more comprehensive
understanding of spiritual transformation, particularly at this juncture of seeing John’s
work as the fleshing out of Jung’s psychological process of individuation. These two
major ways correspond directly to two of the Five Frames we examined in the previous
chapter, ways in which individuation provides a framework for John’s dark night.

The First Flesh Out: Spiritual Transformation Process Fleshes Out Psychic
Transformation (The Second Individuation Frame)

The first major way in which John’s dark night fleshes out the Jungian framework
corresponds to, or dovetails with, the major way in which Jungian individuation
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provides temporal framework for the dark night. The dark night describes the spiritual
transformational passages between stages that take place in spiritual transformation
over the life course, which is set in the context of psychic transformation/individuation
of the entire life cycle. John’s dark night dovetails well with Jungian
individuation because both are primary developmental theories, so in
relationship they associate and cohere in a larger primary developmental
theory of spiritual transformation.
The overarching psychological framework is that of individuation/psychic
transformation process beginning at birth and ending at death. Spiritual transformation,
according to Jung psychologically and John theologically, is the part of the process of
psychic transformation process which deals with what we call spiritual contents today,
as analytical psychologists such as Jung have referred to as “religious contents of the
psyche” as we have previously seen and understood. And John’s dark night describes
the process of spiritual transformation itself, of how movement from one stage of
spiritual consciousness to the next occurs. Thus we see the framework of individuation
within which psychic transformation occurs; we see spiritual transformation as part of
psychic transformation; we see the dark night process by which one spiritual stage is
transformed into the subsequent stage, a process which evolves and telescopes from
birth to death in the totality of the spiritual transformation process constituent to the life
course process of psychic transformation.
As Larkin says, “These dark nights are the trademark of St. John of the
Cross…Doohan gives them a new twist by explaining them as distinct stages of growth,
sandwiched between the classical three ways. They are the periods of real growth, the
night of sense occurring between the beginnings and proficiency, the night of spirit after
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proficiency. Proficiency itself is a state of relative rest and consolidation between two
dynamic periods of growth. There are thus five stages along the way” (Doohan 1995
pp. xiv-xv Larkin Preface), which then are: beginning, dark night of sense, proficiency,
dark night of spirit, and perfection. Larkin continues, “The journey is the progressive
assimilation of the gift of God, received in ever purer faith, hope, and love. This
theological life is the constant perspective of John of the Cross” (Doohan 1995 p. xv
Larkin Preface).
Doohan describes John thus.

People today are impressed not only by John’s extraordinary quality of

expression but also by the purity and authenticity of his message. There is a ring
of truth to his teaching, and people value his uncompromising search for union
with God. While contemporary optimistic spiritualities may keep people going
in the reasonably peaceful plateau periods, the same people often turn to John
for guidance in the critical “dark nights” of life. John is not only a great mystic
but is also an outstanding spiritual guide, who is still directing disciples today
(Doohan 1995 p. 6).

…John spontaneously18 wrote poetry to express his inner mystical

experiences…At times he writes because someone asks him to explain the
meaning of his poetry…His commentaries [on his poetry] help us understand the
stages or dynamics in his system of spiritual growth…keep focused on the main
line of the spiritual process (Doohan 1995 pp. 24-6).

The Dark Night is one of John’s poems, and what we refer to as John’s work The Dark
Night is his poem and his commentary on it. Because the commentary is his explication

18
Whether spontaneous or deliberate, which is a topic for a discussion outside of this project,
the point here is inner expression.
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of the meaning of his “spontaneous” poem, we focus on the commentary and its
explanation of the spiritual process of the dark night.
We see the spiritual journey according to John as a life’s journey, and at the same time
we see the dark night as event, episode, passage, or transformational epoch, in
Doohan’s succinct summary of John’s four major prose, that is, poetry commentary,
works. “John’s four major works are the Ascent of Mount Carmel, the Dark Night, the
Spiritual Canticle, and the Living Flame of Love. All four deal with aspects of the whole
journey to God. The first two use the image of the night and describe especially the
journey of faith, whereas the Canticle and Living Flame of Love use matrimonial or
nuptial imagery and stress the journey of love” (Doohan 1995 p. 34). The Ascent and
Dark Night are often thought of as one work, having a “unity in life and doctrine”
(Doohan 1995 p. 35), and, in Living Flame John himself speaks of “the Dark Night of
the Ascent of Mount Carmel” (John CW p. 651 cited in Doohan 1995 p 37).
Thus we can think of the spiritual journey as John’s Ascent of Mount Carmel,
which is the life-course spiritual transformation in the frame of Jungian individuation
psychological transformation. But we can see that the Dark Night is an experiential
passage from one phase of the Ascent to another. This life transformative Ascent as the
life-span temporal framework for the Dark Night passages is a temporal framework
already present in John’s work, so the frame of psychic transformation gives the context
for spiritual transformation, which gives the spiritual transformation framework as
context for the dark night. The way John perceives of the temporal aspects and phases
of the Dark Night, as stages in the spiritual journey in the Ascent of Mount Carmel over
the life course, fills in or fleshes out the experiential details of spiritual transformation
framed by the life development of psychic transformation of Jungian individuation.
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The Second Flesh-Out: The Dark Night as Life Event or Passage Fleshes
Out the Life Span Temporal Frame (The Fifth Frame of Individuation)

At the same time we can now begin to see the second major way in which the
dark night fleshes out Jungian individuation framework. Spiritual contents of the psyche
transform not only in the time of the dark night, but also through the processes of the
dark night. In the overarching frame of psychic transformation / individuation, spiritual
transformation occurs as spiritual contents of the psyche make passage through the
successive dark night processes: sense and spirit; active and passive; beginner,
proficient, perfect.
That is, psychic transformation occurs as a life process, and spiritual
transformation, that is, psychic or conscious transformation of spiritual contents of the
psyche, also occurs as a life process, constituent to psychic transformation. The dark
night is the process – as well as the time – in which spiritual transformation occurs,
which in turn transforms the overall psyche. Roberto Assagioli, Italian psychoanalyst
contemporaneous to and colleague of Jung, has named this psychosynthesis, in modern
psychological terms19. He contended, from the springboard of Jung’s work, that when
spiritual transformation occurred in the psyche the psyche itself was transformed in such
a way that a new psychic self-understanding and perspective, and resulting personality,
had to be synthesized from the integration of the previous consciousness and self into
a newer, more evolved consciousness, that is, a spiritual consciousness, and sense of
self. A new self is synthesized by the newly transformed psyche, having attained newly

19
Assagioli, Roberto A. 1965. Psychosynthesis. This is his primary work, and it has been revised
several times but is still published as his classic work. See Bibliography.
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transformed spirit, so that a more conscious self develops to live more consciously, in
terms of Jung’s conscious/unconscious dialectic. This we would describe, in
contemporary terms, as spiritual growth.
John felt it essential to understand the specific dynamics of spiritual growth, or
the process by which spiritual transformation happens and exactly what
psychic/spiritual contents or inner material is transformed, for two main reasons. As
Doohan cites, John felt “…’it is extremely necessary to so many souls’ (John CW p.

115)…whom God calls to union, but whose spiritual directors do not understand the
dynamic of spiritual growth” (Doohan 1995 p. 36). Here we see that one reason is
because God calls us to spiritual growth to attain union with him. The second reason is
because those who respond to God’s call to spiritual growth must have assistance on
the way, and that assistance must come from an understanding of the process of
spiritual growth. John is concerned that directors know this process in order to assist
those going through the process. John does not hesitate to criticize directors who lack
this understanding, and he gives clear and specific warnings to beginners and
proficients desiring to progress spiritually as to avoiding direction which is at best
inappropriate and at worst damaging. Doohan says, “John acknowledges that the
subject matter is difficult but he feels compelled to deal with it” (Doohan 1995 p. 35)
for these reasons.
The framework of individuation provided by Jung views the human person as an
individual participating in development of the individual self through self-actualization
and self-realization, a psychic transformation which begins in the first half of life with
self-realization, and completes in the second half with realization of self in relation to
the collective, outer world. Or the individual is participating in activating of
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consciousness in realization of the unconscious, including archetypes, of which the

archetype of the God-image is one. John’s dark night describes the dynamics of the
process of spiritual growth and all of the psychic and spiritual contents or matter which
are part of that process, which, in Jung’s terms, describes that portion of individuation
in which the self comes to realization of, and relationality with, the archetype of the
God-image. John’s dark night provides a detailed understanding of how that realization
of God occurs, and how God relationality progresses, which fleshes out Jung’s

psychological framework with spiritual dynamics.

The Third Flesh-Out: Receipt Of God’s Agency and Input of Spiritual

Transformation Into Psychic Process as Consciousness (The Fourth Frame
of Individuation)

Understanding the dynamics of spiritual process, inclusive of the formation and

development of God-relationality, brings us to the third way in which John’s dark night
fleshes out a Jungian frame. It is within Jungian individuation and its ongoing process
of psychic transformation that the person can be receptive to, and receiving of, God’s
input. The person can open to, and then be open to, the input and dynamics of God’s
agency in the person and in the life of the person.
Receptivity to God’s input into the psychic/spiritual awareness or consciousness
of the person and into the existential and experiential reality of life experience can
begin only after conscious realization of the archetype of the God-image in the psyche,
in Jung’s terms, or when the soul begins to consider spiritual growth toward eventual
God-union, in John’s terms. Increasingly conscious awareness in the psyche, in Jung’s
thought, provides the framework in the person in which God-
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awareness/consciousness/realization and thereby receptivity to God’s input, which is

the beginning of John’s union with God, can occur.
To further understand God’s input and agency as John’s spiritual fleshing out of
Jung’s psychic process frame we can look at three different versions of description of
how this frame fills in:

1. John’s version: active night / passive night

2. Agency version: individual agency / God’s agency

3. Jung’s version: personal / collective, or conscious / unconscious

At this juncture, prior to examining these versions, we must first understand that the
dynamic of personal experience, that is, of the experiential nature of human life, was
crucial to John’s understanding of spiritual dynamical process, as well as being another
impetus for why he felt it so important that spiritual dynamics were practically and
specifically understood. Doohan says, “The Ascent is the fruit of long experience and
personal observation…John wrote the poem [Dark Night], while his own experience of
the night in Toledo [prison] was still fresh in his memory…the poem that precedes the
commentary is the living expression of his spiritual experience. Its images of night and
flight differ from the active climbing and effort of the Ascent. Although referring to the
purifying darkness experienced in spiritual growth, the poem is written after the pain
and suffering have passed, with the perspective and awareness that the Lord was
leading through the night toward loving union” (Doohan 1995 pp. 36-7).
The Dark Night deals with the passive nights of sense and spirit. It was written
by John in the years immediately following his imprisonment in Toledo, so the
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experience of a dark night, both of John’s active life as a Carmelite reformer and
spiritual director, and of John’s passive life mode in prison, was John’s basis for writing
specifically about what it is to experience the dark night. His theological and religious
training enabled him to express the night in such terms, but what he is describing is the
actual experience of the dark night. Having been through the experience himself he
was able to communicate clearly and precisely what the experience is and how
directors should understand and work with those who are experiencing the night. It is

also why he had such a sense of urgency to assist people through it, and was so firm
in his intent that directors should be understanding of the dark night and so know how
to lead those suffering from the darkness into the light. It was John’s own experience
of the dark night that makes him well able to express what the experience of the dark
night is, and so how to move through it.
Actual experience fleshes out the natural mode of psychic and spiritual
transformation by precipitating the experience of the actual transformation. The dark
night as the passive way of spiritual transformation allows for the stilling of personal
activity in deference to God’s activity toward the person. Payne says, “For John, the
spiritual life involves movement from a condition in which such experiences
predominate and impede divine communications, to a condition in which all desires and
energies are integrated and directed toward union with God; spiritual growth goes
hand-in-hand with moral and psychological growth” (Payne 1990 p. 52).
John describes his view of God’s input into the person and distinguishes it from
the supernatural pre-existing presence of God in the soul, in the Ascent, which will give
us clarity in knowing how it is God’s input is received in the soul and how spiritual
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transformation, or steps toward complete union with God, occur. This also clarifies
John’s theological anthropology.

To understand the nature of this union, one should first know that God
sustains every soul and dwells in it substantially, even though it may be that of
the greatest sinner in the world. This union between God and the creature always
exists. By it He conserves their being…Consequently, in discussing union with
God, we are not discussing the substantial union that always exists, but the soul’s
union with and transformation in God that does not always exist, except when
there is likeness of love. This union…we find…only where there is a likeness of
love. We will call it the union of likeness; and the former the essential or
substantial union. The union of likeness is supernatural, the other natural. The
supernatural union exists when God’s will and the soul’s are in
conformity…When the soul rids itself completely of what is repugnant and
unconfirmed to the divine will, it rests transformed in God through love (John
CW p. 163).

Culligan speaks of John’s understanding of consciousness and the unconscious

in contemporary terms. He says, “You can discover John’s theory of the unconscious if
you look closely at those passages where he treats of the memory and of the ‘deeply-
rooted’ disorders in the human soul which are healed by contemplation. For John,
memory is a spiritual faculty which, together with intellect and will, enables a person to

transcend the boundaries and limitations of the sensory universe and to achieve loving
union with the incomprehensible and transcendent God” (Culligan 1993 pp. 90-1).
For John, says Culligan, the memory is an interior archive or repository, closely
associated with the interior sense faculties of imagination and fantasy. It reflects on
preserved images and ideas, so having the power to change them. Attachment to these
images causes negative emotional damage, whereas for John detachment from them
frees the inner self to receive God in contemplation. Once freed, the memory, intellect
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and will has infinite capacity to “receive God’s self-communication in contemplation

and to have the serenity of God’s image impressed upon it” (Culligan 1993 pp. 91-2).
Culligan’s language here iterates Jung’s language of the “God-image in the psyche”.
Culligan describes how John understands the conscious/unconscious as having the
ability to be receptive to God’s input and that consciousness, once freed in
contemplation, can apprehend the God-image in the psyche. Culligan further describes
the healing process in the psyche, in spiritual transformation.

Contemplation heals those deeply rooted disorders primarily through

divine enlightenment. As healing in psychotherapy comes through making the
unconscious conscious, so contemplation brings to light the disorders of the soul
so that they may be clearly seen, expelled and annihilated. In a passage that
sounds descriptive of contemporary psychotherapy, John explains the healing of
deep-rooted disorders through the illumination of contemplation. He writes:
“At this stage (of contemplative purification) persons suffer from sharp
trials in their intellect, severe dryness and distress in their will, and from the
burdensome knowledge of their own miseries in their memory, for their spiritual
eye gives them a very clear picture of self…A person’s suffering at this time
cannot be exaggerated…All the person’s infirmities are brought to light; they
are set before its eyes to be felt and healed (Flame, stanza 1, section 21).”
We note in this passage that through contemplation persons see their
infirmities, feel them and they are healed. As in psychotherapy, the healing of
our inner conflicts takes place as we both see them (or they become conscious
to us) and feel them…contemplation, as John of the Cross understood it, is by
nature psychotherapeutic – a healing of the psyche – because it enables us to
see and feel the effects of sin and the deeply-rooted, unconscious disorders
present in our soul (Culligan 1993 pp. 94-6).

Doohan says, “Book One [of the Dark Night] deals with the passive night of
sense, and Book Two deals with the passive night of spirit. In both cases the passive
purification is achieved through contemplation” (Doohan 1995 p. 37). Contemplation
is the psychic and spiritual mode of choosing to direct one’s focus inward through
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recollection and God-directedness, and receptivity (inactivity, or passivity) to God’s

agency and activity in relation to the contemplative person.
Blommestijn describes the contemplative process as it operates according to
John, between the soul and the sensory intellect.

…This divine entrance into us is necessarily realized through an exodus

out of ourselves so that we become space for God. When in contemplation, our
eyes are trained in true vision, we reach the core of our being in transcending
our “senses”. By this process we are enabled to open ourselves to the Reality of
all reality. In the transcendence of our spiritual capacities we begin to “see” God
as our deepest core, the reality which escapes every form of being mixed with
“selfhood” …The “night” of John of the Cross…describes ultimate reality. As
spiritual people we have not come to full development in our selves. On the
contrary, we have discovered ourselves as beings, who, by going out of
ourselves, discover the full reality on the other side and open ourselves up to
it…By submitting to this reality we ultimately become ourselves…Only the night
can liberate us from ourselves, that is, from everything we wrongfully consider
more real than Reality…Thus he teaches us to forego the operation of our
intellectual capacities, the operation which is based on the information of the
”senses”, in order in the emptiness of ourselves to open us up completely to his
divine operation…This “inflow of God into the soul” is the true contemplation or
the “mystical theology through which God secretly teaches the soul and instructs
it in the perfection of love without its doing anything, nor understanding how it
happens” [John CW p. 401]. And precisely this is the end toward which our
human life is directed! (Blommestijn 2000 p. 236).
…Thus from within the love of God we receive the capacity to become
the persons we really are in the eyes of God. In this way, despite the appearance
of the contrary, we lose nothing and gain everything. For we are now born in
our original dignity which enables us “to reach perfect union with God through
love” [John CW p. 449]…This is “the science of love”, “an infused loving
knowledge of God which both illumines and enamors the soul with a view to
elevating it step by step to God, its Creator” (John CW p. 440 cited in
Blommestijn 2000 p. 239).
…In surrendering to contemplation we finally deliver ourselves up to the
passionate movement of the love which now alone guides and moves our soul
and makes us soar to our God on the road of solitude, without knowing how
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and in what way…Thus the journey of the night ends with the perspective which
makes life possible; God himself who takes us by the hand and leads us into the
paradise of his love (Blommestijn 2000 pp. 240-1).

For John, in both nights of sense and spirit, what begins as active agency of the
person evolves into passivity of the persona and receptivity of God’s activity in and
toward the person. The psyche transforms from personal activity to passivity and
receptivity and the input received causes growth and further psychic/spiritual
transformation. God’s input can be received into the contemplative mode created in
the framework of psychic transformative process.
Finishing our look at the three versions of this framework fill in, we can see that
John’s version is movement from the active mode of the dark night to the passive mode,
in both sense and spirit. We can also see movement from personal, individual agency
to contemplation/passivity/receptivity of God’s divine agency. And, in Jung’s
psychological concept of the individuating psyche we see movement of contents of the
collective unconscious, specifically of the archetype of the God-image, to the personal
conscious, or into the individuator’s conscious awareness, and subsequent
incorporation into the newly transformed psyche and its life expression.
D’Souza summarizes the transformation in the night, from unconsciousness to
consciousness, from activity to passivity with God’s input.

The Night indicates a higher stage of progress of man in his spiritual

journey. Here God seems to destroy all man-made outlines and sketches. God
initiates in man the dynamic process of union and transformation. The work
highlights the deep and profound mysteries of God that are impenetrable
through man’s own efforts. This stage of the spiritual life leaves man in intense
and passive purification. The Night, seen in its progressive purifying perspective,
eventually becomes the source of illumination and light to man’s eyes of faith.
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At times the illumination blinds man causing darkness; as some say: “there is in
God a deep, but dazzling darkness”20 (D’Souza 1996 p. 191).

The Fourth Flesh-Out: Collective Religious/Social/Cultural and Spiritual

Transformation Fleshes Out Individuation as Individual Choice (The Third
Frame)

The fourth fleshing out by John’s dark night of a Jungian frame we now consider is that

of individual choice framing social/religious/cultural participation. We saw in Chapter One

in Jung’s thought, and in Chapter Three discussion of Jungian individuation frameworks, how
Jung describes the relationship of the individual to society via individuation. The dark night
fleshes out that framework well because, as Payne (1990 p. 50) outlines, John’s theology of
spiritual development identifies the first step as departure of the person from the world; the
second step is development along the road of faith; the third step is arrival at union with God.

Like most theories of psychological and spiritual development, John’s

teaching includes an account of: 1) the initial state of the person undergoing
change; 2) the means of growth and the successive stages by which it is
achieved; and 3) the goal of the development process. In fact, John divides his
own discussion along these lines when he suggests three reasons for calling the
journey toward divine union a “night.” (Note in passing that these three
“reasons” are not different temporal phases of the spiritual life, as has sometimes
been thought) (Payne 1990 p. 50).

Payne’s outline intentionally and using contemporary language paraphrases John’s

outline of the dark night.

20
Quotation is cited from “Vaughan, H., The Night, [ed. E.K. Chambers, London 1896, page]
253”.
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We can offer three reasons for calling this journey toward union with
God a night.
The first has to do with the point of departure, because the individuals
must deprive themselves of their appetites for worldly possessions. This denial
and privation is like a night for all one’s senses.
The second reason refers to the means or the road along which a person
travels to this union. Now this road is faith, and for the intellect faith is also like
a dark night.
The third reason pertains to the point of arrival, namely God. And God
is also a dark night to the soul in this life. These three nights pass through a soul,
or better, the soul passes through them in order to reach union with God (John
CW p. 120)…

The dark night we can now understand as the individual’s break21 from society,
recollection back into the self, and experience of spiritual transformation in the inner
self, apart from society. John explains the experience of the night, away from society.

We are using the expression “night” to signify a deprival of the

gratification of the soul’s appetites in all things. Just as night is nothing but the
privation of light and, consequently, of all objects visible by means of the light –
darkness and emptiness, then, for the faculty of sight – the mortification of the
appetites can be called a night for the soul. To deprive oneself of the gratification
of the appetites in all things is like living in a darkness and in a void…people by
means of their appetites feed and pasture on worldly things that gratify their
faculties. When the appetites are extinguished – or mortified – one no longer
feeds on the pleasure of these things, but lives in a void and in darkness with
respect to the appetites (John CW pp.121-122).

In discussing the starting point, or first step, of spiritual development Payne says,
“While John maintains that the soul must set aside its natural activity during

21
For more on the “break” as a contemporary technical term in pastoral care I refer the reader
to Augsburger, Pastoral Counseling Across Cultures. See Bibliography.
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contemplation in order to receive the divine communication, he also believes that there
is nothing in human nature as such which prevents this from occurring. As originally
constituted, all of our natural powers are meant to cooperate harmoniously in the
experience of God and creatures…In other words, the arduousness of the spiritual
journey and the infrequency of the higher mystical experiences are not due to our
essential human structure, but rather to our existential condition of psychological
disequilibrium and alienation from God” (Payne 1990 p. 51). The condition can be
caused or exacerbated or maintained by the person’s social participation, particularly
as in John’s notion of the appetites solely for the sake of worldly participation as
disordered.
Payne describes John’s notion that disordered appetites, desires and emotions
occupy the spiritual faculties with sensory things, preventing mystical union. “Here
modern readers can readily agree with John’s diagnosis of the psychological and moral
harm caused by the disorder of the appetites, even if they reject his theological
explanation its origin” [as inherited from Adam in the fallen state] (Payne 1990 p. 51).
Being tied up in sensory appetites and their social engagements externally prevents the
availability of the appetites to transform internally and be fixed on the desire for God.
How this can be experienced is described by Payne, and in effect he paraphrases
Jung’s notion of “the one source of moral progress of society” (see Chapter One on
Jung) being individual spiritual growth.

This characterization of the state of a person before undertaking the

journey toward God may be exaggerated in certain respects, but the
experiences described are familiar enough; we all know what it is to be unable
to think clearly and perceive accurately because of some emotional upheaval.
For John, the spiritual life involves movement from a condition in which such
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experiences predominate and impede divine communications, to a condition in

which all desires and energies are integrated and directed toward union with
God; spiritual growth goes hand-in-hand with moral and psychological growth
(Payne 1990 p. 52).

We previously heard Jung’s analogy of the soul to the eye, and of the sun to
God, and of the soul’s need to perceive the sun of God. Now we can add John’s
theological analogy of God as divine light to Jung’s psychological analogy. John
speaks of faith as a light.

Faith, the theologians say, is a certain and obscure habit of soul.22 It is

an obscure habit because it brings us to believe divinely revealed truths that
transcend every natural light and infinitely exceed all human understanding. As
a result the excessive light of faith bestowed on a soul is darkness for it; a brighter
light will eclipse and suppress a dimmer one. The sun so obscures all other lights
that they do not seem to be lights at all when it is shining, and instead of affording
vision to the eyes, it overwhelms, blinds, and deprives them of vision since its
light is excessive and unproportioned to the visual faculty. Similarly, the light of
faith in its abundance suppresses and overwhelms that of the intellect. For the
intellect, by its own power, extends only to natural knowledge, though it has the
potency to be raised to a supernatural act whenever our Lord wishes (John CW
p. 157).

John also uses the analogy of actual sunlight shining through a window.

…A ray of sunlight shining on a smudgy window is unable to illumine that

window completely and transform it into its own light. It could do this if the
window were cleaned and polished. The less the film and stain are wiped away,
the less the window will be illumined; and the cleaner the window is, the brighter
will be its illumination. The extent of illumination is not dependent on the ray of
sunlight but on the window. If the window is totally clean and pure, the sunlight
will so transform and illumine it that to all appearances the window will be

22
Aquinas is cited specifically here by the John CW translators/editors.
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identical with the ray of sunlight and shine just as the sun’s ray. Although
obviously the nature of the window is distinct from that of the sun’s ray (even if
the two seem identical), we can assert that the window is the ray or light of the
sun by participation. The soul on which the divine light of God’s being is ever
shining, or better, in which it is ever dwelling by nature, is like this window, as
we have affirmed.
A soul makes room for God by wiping away all the smudges and smears
of creatures, by uniting its will perfectly to God’s; for to love is to labor to divest
and deprive oneself for God of all that is not God. When this is done the soul
will be illumined by and transformed in God. And God will so communicate his
supernatural being to the soul that it will appear to be God himself and will
possess what God himself possesses.
When God grants this supernatural favor to the soul, so great a union is
caused that all the things of both God and the soul become one in participant
transformation, and the soul appears to be God more than a soul. Indeed it is
God by participation. Yet truly, its being (even though transformed) is naturally
as distinct from God’s as it was before, just as the window, although illumined
by the ray, has being distinct from the ray’s…
…We clearly see how perfect transformation is impossible without perfect
purity, and how the illumination of the soul and its union with God correspond
to the measure of its purity. The illumination will not be perfect until the soul is
entirely cleansed, clear, and perfect (John CW p. 165).

Payne sums it up by saying, “In other words, John is claiming that although the
Creator is always mysteriously near and available to everyone, the psychological and
spiritual disorder of our fallen state all but drowns out any awareness of this presence.

On the other hand, as we advance in the spiritual life and become more fully integrated,
our consciousness of the ever-present God deepens, and eventually blossoms into
mystical union” (Payne 1990 p. 54). The infusion of the divine into the soul occurs when
psychic and spiritual consciousness is drawn away from society and into the person,
the person becomes conscious of the divine offering of infusion, chooses to accept it by
cleaning the inner window of perception through contemplation, and the Divine shines
in to unify the self with the Divine. Payne is clear that there is choice involved, and
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reiterates that there are active and passive modes. And, in this passage, we see his
confirmation of our previous observation that psychological health is necessary for
spiritual health.

In short, the aim of the Sanjuanist spiritual program, contrary to one

popular opinion, is not to warp or destroy human nature, but to bring it to
fulfillment23. In fact, John would hold, it is their immaturity and lack of
psychological and moral health which typically prevent human beings from
experiencing God more profoundly. Mystical experiences are ultimately
grounded in an ontological relationship to God which everyone enjoys; they are
not the exclusive prerogative of a handful of gifted souls, from which the rest of
us are forever barred. On the contrary, John believes that all can attain some
experience of the divine if they cooperate with God’s purifying activity, a process
one should willingly undergo if only for the sake of the resulting psychological
benefits (Payne 1990 p. 54).

The focal point of the transformation of individuals moving away from the social
world of disordered sense and spiritual appetites into the inner world of rightly ordered
appetites of God, is in the stage of the beginner, in the purgative way. “Beginners,”
Payne says, “are still largely under the sway of their appetites, and since God desires
to raise them to union ‘with order, gently, and according to the mode of the soul’, he
‘must begin by touching the low state and extreme of the senses’ (John CW p. 206).
The enjoyment found in spiritual exercises helps to draw beginners away from their
desire for grosser pleasures…this ‘purgative way’ is a state of spiritual immaturity which

23
This is reminiscent of Jesus saying, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the
prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth
pass away, not one letter [Gk. one iota], not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until
all is accomplished” (Matthew 5:17-18 NRSV). There is also here in Payne and in John an
implication of reason for hope for the spiritually transforming person, that all will be fulfilled,
that all will be healed and transformed.
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must eventually be transcended. In the opening chapters of the Night, St. John of the

Cross offers a masterful critique of the imperfections of beginners, which stem

principally from the continued strength of their sensory appetites, and their consequent
tendency to make sensible pleasure the sole criterion of spiritual value…John wants to
aid individuals in the ‘purgative way’ in restoring the proper equilibrium to their lives,
so that their actions are no longer determined by the pursuit of pleasure and avoidance
of pain, but begin to be guided by reason and the divine will” (Payne 1990 pp. 61-3).
That is, John wants the influence of pleasure and pain of the sensory social world to
decrease, which happens in the active and passive dark nights of sense, and inner
reason and input of divine will to increase, which happens in the active and passive
dark nights of spirit.
This process begins in the passive night of sense. “This passive night of sense,”
says Payne, “by which one advances [from the purgative way] to the ‘illuminative way’
is ‘the most critical point of all in spiritual development’ because it represents the
transition to a predominantly contemplative mode of prayer24. In John’s view, all later
phases of the mystical life are simply a further unfolding of what begins here…this state
is ‘common’ (John CW p. 375) and is perhaps the most clearly defined stage of the
religious growth-process…the loss of sensual gratification in spiritual exercises helps the
soul to overcome the beginner’s faults…(Payne 1990 p. 64).
Payne finishes describing the crucial and pivotal nature of this passive night of
sense by saying, “Further benefits of this dry purgation include a ‘withering’ of the

24
Payne here has quoted from “Dicken [E. W. Trueman] 1963 p. 164 [The Crucible of Love:
A Study of the Mysticism of St. Teresa of Jesus and St. John of the Cross, Sheed & Ward, New
York].
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appetites, spiritual sobriety, greater constancy in virtue, and a habitual remembrance

of God (see [John CW pp. 389-392]). Now that the soul has undergone an initial
‘accommodation of the senses to the spirit’ [John CW p. 397], and consequently has
begun to receive a certain ‘general loving knowledge’…[the soul] advances into the
‘illuminative way’ of contemplatives” (Payne 1990 p. 66).
John summarizes this way.

This night, which as we say is contemplation, causes two kinds of darkness

or purgation in spiritual persons according to the two parts of the soul, the
sensory and the spiritual. Hence one night of purgation is sensory, by which the
senses are purges and accommodated to the spirit: and the other night or
purgation is spiritual, by which the spirit is purged and denuded as well as
accommodated and prepared for union with God through love. The sensory
night is common and happens to many. These are the beginners…The spiritual
night is the lot of very few, those who have been tried and are proficient… (John
CW p. 375).

Cavanaugh and Rodriguez, John CW translators and editors, clarify that “this passive
night of the senses marks a transition from the stage of beginners to that of proficients;
the passive night of the spirit, the transition from the stage of proficients to that of the
perfect” (John CW p. 375 editors’ note). The process begins with recollection, and
through the active and passive dark nights of sense and the active dark night of spirit,
the person moves to contemplation and then toward the final stage, the passive dark
night of spirit and loving union with God.
We said earlier that this “focal point of the transformation of individuals moving
away from the social world…into the inner world…begins with recollection”, so we will
continue to focus in even more detail on recollection as pivotal to this transformation.
In the previous chapter we discussed the process of recollection, in both Jung’s and
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John’s view, at some length. There is no definition in the glossary of John’s Collected
Works, but Culligan has synthesized a specific contemporary description of the
psychology and theology of the process of recollection.

John means by this word…centering the faculties of our soul – both exterior (the
five senses) and interior (intellect, will, and memory) in the object of our longing
(or our apetito), namely God. Thus, it is akin to being centered on our primary
object (in Buddhist Insight Meditation), and when our mind wanders from that
object, we gently bring the mind back to focus on the primary object. For John,
the primary object of our life and prayer is God; when the senses, or the mind,
or the memory, or the will, wanders from being centered in God, we “recollect”
(or “re-center”) them in God or simply bring them back to be “centered” in God.
It is analogous, too, to mindfulness in Buddhist insight practice…Recollection
involves being consciously attentive to God’s presence in all that happens in
each moment, and protecting our mind, our will, or memory (to the extent we
are able) from “spinning out” into distractions, fears, resentment, et cetera. For
Teresa of Avila, “recollection” is the heart of “mental prayer” in that we simply
“recollect” (or center) our faculties upon the presence of God within us and
gently bring our faculties back to the Presence when the mind, the memory, or
the will has wandered off (Culligan, e-mail letter to Kay 16 February 2003).

To this I add a simplification of the notion of recollection which we have touched on

earlier, which in its initial phase of recollection of bringing the focus of attention from
the outer world of the person into the inner world of the person, and refocusing on
interior thoughts, feelings, and processes.
It is interesting here to note that it was Culligan who previously in this chapter
pointed out John’s notion of movement from attachment to inner thoughts and feelings
toward detachment from inner thoughts and feelings as that which alleviates pain and
disordered attachments, making room and allowing for receipt of God’s input and
movement toward joy and love and God-union. We can think of this movement from
attachment to detachment as part of the internal phase of recollection as described by
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Culligan. We can think of detachment and subsequent enlightenment in Buddhism. We

can think of Jesus saying, “Not my will but thine be done”. And, we can think of
traditional theological thought of the kenosis of Christ, and that, rather than Christ
emptying himself of divine perfection to become human, we can recollect and empty
ourselves as humans to become receptive to the divine. Recollection begins by
gathering one’s thoughts from the exterior, social world and concentrating them on the
interior, personal and spiritual world. Once in the interior recollection causes thoughts

and feelings to detach from personal content – or as John would say, appetites – and
focus on spiritual content, or God – as John would say, the appetite of God.
Recollection, once interior, allows for transformation of the appetites from creaturely,
social, sensory appetites into the interior appetite for God, which, as union progresses,
becomes the appetite of God.
The crux of the recollection process is turning the ‘attention’ of our faculties, or
our consciousness in Jungian terms, away from the sensory social world and inward
into the person’s psychic world in preparation for spiritual contemplation. Recollection
moves consciousness from exterior social world, into interior, spiritual world, when and
where contemplation can begin. What will be contemplated is the spiritual nature of
the person, which we discussed in the frame of spiritual contents as psychic contents,
and God’s spiritual input into the person, which we discussed in the frame of psychic
process as receiving God’s input. John’s way of referring to these two aspects of the
spiritual nature of the person, which we have called “spiritual contents” and “receipt
of God’s input”, is to speak of God as sustaining (inputing) every soul, and of God as
dwelling (spiritual contents) in every soul.
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It will be helpful in understanding spiritual nature and process to understand

John’s theological anthropology, which we touched on previously. We find it in his
works other than The Dark Night. In the Ascent John states specifically what he means
by his phrase “union of the soul with God”, with the intention of detailing the process
of the union, but at the same time speaks of his understanding of the soul’s relationship
with God.

To understand the nature of this union, one should first know that God
sustains every soul and dwells in it substantially, even though it may be that of
the greatest sinner in the world. This union between God and creatures always
exists. By it he conserves their being so that if the union should end they would
immediately be annihilated and cease to exist. Consequently, in discussing union
with God we are not discussing the substantial union that always exists, but the
soul’s union with and transformation in God that does not always exist, except
when there is likeness of love. We will call it the union of likeness; and the former,
the essential or substantial union. The union of likeness is supernatural; the other,
natural. The supernatural union exists when God’s will and the soul’s are in
conformity, so that nothing in the one is repugnant to the other. When the soul
rids itself completely of what is repugnant and unconfirmed to the divine will, it
rests transformed in God through love (John CW p. 163).
He develops this further in The Spiritual Canticle25.

The verse follows: Reveal your presence.

In explanation of this verse it should be known that God’s presence can
be of three kinds:
The first is his presence by essence. In this way he is present not only in
the holiest souls but also in sinners and all other creatures. With this presence he
gives them life and being…

25
See Payne 1990 pp. 52-4 for more detailed discussion.
 164

The second is his presence by grace, in which he abides in the soul,

pleased and satisfied with it. Not all have this presence of God; those who fall
into mortal sin lose it…
The third is his presence by spiritual affection, for God usually grants his
spiritual presence to devout souls in many ways by which he refreshes, delights,
and gladdens them.
Yet these many kinds of spiritual presence, just as the others, are all
hidden, for in them God does not reveal himself as he is, since the conditions of
this life will not allow such a manifestation. Thus the above verse “reveal your
presence” could be understood of any of these three ways in which God is
present.
Since it is certain that at least in the first way God is ever present in the
soul, she does not ask him to be present in her but that he so reveal his hidden
presence, whether natural, spiritual, or affective, that she may be able to see
him in his divine being and beauty. Since he both gives the soul natural being
through his essential presence and perfects her through his presence by grace,
she begs him to glorify her also with his manifest glory (John CW pp. 511-2
Canticle B26).

And, we see John’s understanding of God-relationality.

No creature, none of its actions and abilities, can reach or encompass

God’s nature. Consequently, a soul must strip itself of everything pertaining to
creatures and of its actions and abilities (of its understanding, satisfaction, and
feeling), so that when everything unlike and unconfirmed to God is cast out, it
may receive the likeness of God. And the soul will receive this likeness because
nothing contrary to the will of God will be left in it. Thus it will be transformed in
God.
It is true that God is ever present in the soul, as we said, and thereby
bestows and preserves its natural being by his sustaining presence. Yet he does
not always communicate supernatural being to it. He communicates supernatural
being only through love and grace, which not all souls possess. And those who
do, do not possess them in the same degree. Some have attained higher degrees
of love, others remain in lower degrees. To the soul that is more advanced in

26
For an explanation of The Two Redactions of the Commentary see John CW pp. 467-8. Our
1991 CW Revised Edition uses Redaction B.
 165

love, more conformed to the divine will, God communicates himself more. A
person who has reached complete conformity and likeness of will has attained
total supernatural union and transformation in God (John CW pp. 163-4).

Of the spiritual nature of the person John says, “God is ever present in the soul”, as
Jung says that the God-archetype or imago dei is ever present in the psyche. Of spiritual
process in the person John says, “God…reveal[s] His hidden presence,” as Jung says
that the person becomes conscious of what was previously the unconscious archetype
of the God-image.
One final point to be made in this flesh-out discussing the relationship of the
individual to society and individual choice is that in the dark night is to be aware of and
attentive to, in Culligan’s terms, “a person’s interior suffering”. He says that the dark
night…[is] descriptive of a person’s interior suffering, both sensory and spiritual, as one
journeys to union with God” (Culligan, personal communication to Kay 18 February
2003). That is, the spiritual nature exists within the person, and the spiritual process
occurs within the person. The dark night(s) may have external facets which society may
see, or which may impact the person’s relationality, but the process of spiritual
transformation happens in the “interior”, in the same sense of interior of Teresa’s
Interior Castles. The dark night happens in the interior of the person undergoing
spiritual transformation, so what can be an entirely life-altering event for the person
may be entirely unnoticed or misunderstood by society. The external appearance of a
person may or may not reflect the internal spiritual process. This being the case, there
are several important ramifications of this to note here.
A psychologist is trained to observe and detect psychic process, but unless
spiritual contents of the person’s psyche are discussed outwardly with the therapist, the
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therapist may miss that interior dimension. Next, social interaction, particularly religious
participation, may or may not reflect the inner spiritual nature and process of the
person. This is a primary reason why the distinction between religiosity and spirituality
must be made, because the nature of spirituality is that it is an “interior” process, in
Culligan’s, John’s, and Teresa’s terms; and the nature of religiosity is that it is an
exterior, collective, social participation. Spiritual transformation and growth may or
may not have anything to do with religious growth, and social, religious growth may

not have anything to do with inner, spiritual growth.

Last and very important is the interior, private, intimate nature of the relationship
of the individual soul to Spirit, or, put another way, of the person to God. This is why
for John this relationship is developed inwardly, in the interior, through recollection and
then in contemplation of God, the Beloved, and the love of the person for God
increases inwardly through the person’s participation in God and spiritual
transformation of the person culminates in union with God through love. Recollection
and contemplation can be thought of as Western Christian ways of Eastern meditation.
By our nature as persons we increase in our awareness of God’s presence in us,
and we develop in our relationship to God by increasing awareness of His presence to
us, and input into us. As we understand this nature and process of spiritual
transformation, we come to know that this process is happening in our interior as part
of our own individuation. Then we can come to know that this process is happening in
the interiors of those persons with whom we interact, and in fact with all human persons.
It is this interior spiritual dynamic which is active – although lethally – in the act of
suicide. It is, at least spiritually, a way in which Jesus is the Son of God. It is the way
we are all children of God and made in God’s image, that is, spiritually, in our interior
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spiritual core. Faith is an interior, passive spiritual process, while works are exterior
spiritual manifestation and religious activity.
We suffer, love, and believe in the interior, and act in the exterior, and our
actions may or may not reflect what is happening in the interior. We forget our interior
spiritual process as we get caught up in the material, sense world day to day, so John’s
process of recollecting ourselves from the outer world and returning to our natural
spiritual interior is essential for our spiritual transformation, and it is the dark night

experience – whether active or passive and especially of sense but also of spirit – which
demands the return to the interior. As we observe and interact with others, we view
their exteriors and begin to think that all that is happening with those others is what we
see of them. We forget that spiritual transformation – at some stage, in some way – is
happening in their interior. When we remember this interiority we can give ourselves
more opportunity to foster our interior spiritual experiences, as well as have
understanding, respect, and compassion and possible companionship for others as
having their own interior spiritual experiences. We will revisit these interior dynamics
in Chapter Five when we flesh out the entire psychological theory of spiritual
transformation.

The Fifth Flesh-Out: Historic Religious and Cultural Process Fleshes Out
Individuation as Contemporary Framework (The First Frame)

The final flesh-out we consider is that modern psychological understanding

contemporizes John’s sixteenth century theological and what we would call
psychological thought. Culligan’s Toward a Model of Spiritual Direction Based on the
Writings of Saint John of the Cross and Carl R. Rogers: An Exploratory Study (1979)
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is the most foundational and exhaustive work to date applying principles and practices
of modern psychotherapy to Christian spiritual direction tradition, and to John’s spiritual
direction in particular. He says, “One problem for spiritual direction in its current
renewal is its relation to therapeutic psychology. During the last seventy-five years when
spiritual direction appeared to have lost its relevance for Christians, therapeutic
psychology assumed a significant role in modern life…Many authors27agree that
modern therapeutic psychology contains important implications for spiritual direction.

One author states that ‘the most urgent problems of spiritual direction occur precisely
in the realm of psychology’28. However, an adequate methodology is lacking for
assimilating the insights of modern psychology into the theory and practice of spiritual
direction…[Culligan] demonstrate[s] a method by which the benefits of modern
therapeutic psychology can be utilized in the research, theory, and practice of spiritual
direction…(Culligan 1979 pp. 12-13).
More recently Culligan in A Fresh Approach to St. John of the Cross (1993)
contributed an article called “John of the Cross and Modern Psychology: A Brief
Journey Into The Unconscious”, in which he discusses John in the light of contemporary
understandings of the unconscious, particularly that of Freudian psychoanalysis. He
says,

John calls contemplation the “inflow of God” into human life, a life-long
process by which God enlightens us to see more clearly not only who God is but

27
See Culligan 1979 p. 12 for authors cited.

28
Culligan cites “Gabriel [of St. Mary Magdalen, Father.] The Spiritual Director [According to
the Principles of St. John of the Cross. Translated by a Benedictine of Stanbrook Abbey.
Westminster MD: Newman Press, 1951] page 59”.
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also who we are. God, then, even more than a “transformed consciousness”, is
the goal or end of this contemplative process. For John assures us that, after
God’s light has revealed to us and healed the deep-rooted disorders that sin and
life experience have left in our unconscious, God awakens in the depths of our
being to welcome us in an embrace of transforming love (Culligan 1993 p. 99).

Culligan concludes that,

This interest of Freud and John of the Cross in the same critical areas of
human life suggests that the disciplines of Carmelite spirituality and
contemporary psychology ought to remain in close dialogue. Those especially
who practise the fine arts of spiritual direction and psychotherapy have much to
learn from one another. Contemporary psychology, for example, has continued
Freud’s interest in the unconscious and pursued extensively its bio-physical,
psycho-personal, socio-cultural and transpersonal-spiritual implications. As “the
varying fields of psychology continue to study that which influences our
behaviour, but of which we are not aware”29, their findings most certainly will
be enormously valuable to spiritual directors whose work, as John of the Cross
points out in the first book of The Dark Night, often focuses upon helping persons
understand the true motives for their religious behavior. In particular,
psychological research into the unconscious can help us fully appreciate John of
the Cross’s remarkable insight that memory includes not simply what can be
easily called forth into consciousness (what Freud would call the preconscious)
but all life experiences which are somewhere retained in the human organism
and which subtly influence our behaviour. Finally, the ongoing psychological
research into determining precisely the healing factors in psychotherapy has
direct implications for spiritual directors…
On the other hand, Carmelite spirituality can assist contemporary
psychology continually to expand its vision of the human beyond its current
models of personality to include the human person’s infinite capacity for
transcendent truth, goodness and beauty – ultimately for God… (Culligan 1993
pp. 100-1).

29
Culligan cites “Caputi, Guide, p. 155”.
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In The Contemporary Challenge of John of the Cross Doohan describes the

contemporary relevance of John in general, saying that John “is a figure of prime
importance in the history of Christian spirituality. Persecuted during his own life, ignored
after his death, and frequently misrepresented as a hard, cold, inhuman person, John
is appreciated today as one of the most healthily integrated individuals of the Christian
tradition. Interest in John’s teachings and appreciation of his extraordinary insights into
Christian life and prayer are higher than ever and still growing…(Doohan 1995 p. 5).
He continues that, “People today are impressed not only by John’s extraordinary
quality of expression but also by the purity and authenticity of his message. There is a
ring of truth to his teaching, and people value his uncompromising search for union with
God. While contemporary optimistic spiritualities may keep people going in the
reasonably peaceful plateau periods, the same people often turn to John for guidance
in the critical ‘dark nights’ of life. John is not only a great mystic but an outstanding
spiritual guide, who is still directing disciples today” (Doohan 1995 p. 6).
Doohan concludes that “John integrates all the best values from his experience
in one great thrust of self-dedication to God…John shows us how to live in a struggle-
filled…church…He learned to cope with people who resist[ed] the renewal he wanted,
with ecclesiastical authorities interested in the power that religion brings, with the spite
of some, the envy of others, and dishonest slander of still others. Through all his
struggles, he maintains right priorities and proves that contemplative union is possible
under any circumstances. A man of wisdom, he has journeyed to the mountaintop and
can guide us too” (Doohan 1995 p. 22).
In John of the Cross and the Cognitive Value of Mysticism Payne also discusses
Freud as he writes of psychoanalytical and psychological cognitive, reductive views of
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mysticism, and concludes that “…it is reasonable to accept contemplative awareness as

cognitive mode of experience. And this…is…a solid argument that this belief [in the
cognitive value of mystical states] is not contrary to reason. For as St. John of the Cross
says, ‘all matters must be regulated by reason save those of faith, which though not
contrary to reason, transcend it’ [John CW p. 235]” (Payne 1990 p. 219).
To understand John in general through the eyes of psychology, to set John’s
teaching in relation to the unconscious, and to contemporize John’s mystical theology

as a cognitive experience, I refer the reader to all three of the above sources. But, in
order to understand spiritual transformation and theorize a psychotherapeutic
approach, we will contemporize John psychotherapeutically specifically in precise
detail in Part Three, in the next Chapter Five.
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PART THREE: THE TWO THINKERS INTEGRATED

INTRODUCTION

In PART TWO we considered Gorsuch’s first type of interdisciplinary integration,

interdisciplinary commentary, on Jungian individuation as an overarching theme and
five primary ways of comparison in which it provides a framework for St. John’s Dark

Night. We then also considered the Dark Night as an overarching theme and the ways
of comparison in which it fleshes out each of the five primary frameworks. Now in PART
THREE we examine the relationship of the thinkers to each other set forth in integration
of the five frameworks in broader context and in greater detail. The broader context
we will examine is the purview of psychotherapy, therapeutic approach, and
therapeutic intervention. The greater detail we will examine is the specificity of the
spiritual transformation process set in the broader context of psychotherapeutic
process, also outlined in greater detail.
We move now in PART THREE to the second type of interdisciplinary integration,
which according to Gorsuch is “joint problem-solving”. He says it ranges on a spectrum
between, at one end, “no integration, as in when one discipline uses standard
information from another” and on the other end “complete integration – when both
spirituality and psychological disciplines are involved” (Gorsuch 2002 p. 109).
The problem this dissertation seeks to solve is to understand the process of
spiritual transformation in more spiritual detail, and in terms of psychological process
and psychotherapeutic approach. With this newer, fuller, integrated understanding we
aim to develop therapeutic understanding and approach to facilitate the process of
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spiritual transformation. So, in PART THREE we will be working toward complete

integration of Jung’s psychology and John’s spiritual theology to yield a psychological
theory of spiritual transformation. That is, Jung and John and their disciplines join
together in joint problem-solving to elucidate the process of spiritual transformation.
In Chapter Five we focus our examining lens in high resolution on individuation
and the dark night, and integrate them from overarching themes, through all five
frames, and to the level of detail of psychotherapeutic process. From this melded

integration we propose a theory of therapy. In the last section, the Afterword, we

speculate conclusions, suggest implications, make recommendations, and in general
consider the theory for potential future therapeutic practice and research.
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CHAPTER FIVE: TOWARD A PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORY BASED ON AN

INTEGRATION OF JUNG’S INDIVIDUATION AND ST. JOHN’S DARK
NIGHT

…The integration or humanization of the self is initiated from the conscious

side by our making ourselves aware of our selfish aims; we examine our
motives and try to form as complete and objective a picture as possible of
our own nature. It is an act of self-recollection, a gathering together of
what is scattered, of all the things in us that have never been properly
related, and a coming to terms with oneself with a view to achieving full
consciousness…Self-recollection, however, is about the hardest and most
repellent thing there is for man, who is predominantly unconscious. Human
nature has an invincible dread of becoming more conscious of
itself…Conscious realization or the bringing together of the scattered parts
is in one sense an act of the ego’s will, but in another sense it is a
spontaneous manifestation of the self…which was always there.
Individuation appears, on the one hand, as the synthesis of a new unity
which previously consisted of scattered particles, and on the other hand,
as the revelation of something which existed before the ego and is in fact
its father or creator and also its totality…Christ as the Logos is from all
eternity, but in his human form he is the “Son of Man”…As the Logos, he
is the world-creating principle. This corresponds with the relation of the
self to consciousness, without which no world could be perceived at all.
The Logos is the real principium individuationis, because everything
proceeds from it, and because everything which is, from crystal to man,
exists only in individual form...As a correspondence we have, on the one
hand, the indefiniteness and unlimited extent of the unconscious self
(despite its individuality and uniqueness), its creative relation to individual
consciousness, and, on the other hand, the individual human being as a
mode of its manifestation…Self-recollection is a gathering together of the
self. It is in this sense that we have to understand the instructions which
Monoimos gives to Theophrastus:

Seek him [God] from out thyself, and learn who it is that taketh
possession of everything in thee, saying: my god, my spirit…my
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understanding, my soul, my body; and lean whence is sorrow and

joy, and love and hate, and waking though one would not, and
sleeping though one would not, and getting angry though one
would not, and falling in love though one would not. And if thou
shouldst closely investigate these things, thou wilt find Him in
thyself, the One and the Many, like to that little point, for it is from
thee that he hath his origin30

Self-reflection or – what comes to the same thing – the urge to

individuation gathers together what is scattered and multifarious, and
exalts it to the original form of the One, the Primordial Man. In this way
our existence as separate beings, our former ego nature, is abolished, the
circle of consciousness is widened, and because the paradoxes have been
made conscious the sources of conflict are dried up. This approximation
to the self is a kind of repristination or apocatastasis, in so far as the self
has an “incorruptible” or “eternal” character on account of its being pre-
existent to consciousness…

Jung, Psychology and Western Religion (1984 pp. 159-161)

Of course the [therapeutic] process must arise from inside. No

therapist or anyone else can make it happen…therapeutic approaches
can and need to be adapted and modified so they can be used in relation
to the conscious – unconscious zone from which new steps arise… where
therapeutic movement arises.

Eugene Gendlin, Focusing-Oriented Psychotherapy (1996 pp. 3-4,1)

30
Jung cites “Hippolytus, Elenchos, VIII, 15.”
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Approaching the Theory

A theory, according to Gorsuch, is “never a fact; instead, a theory is a

convenient way to summarize facts so they can be grasped by our human minds”
(Gorsuch 2002 p. 41). In this chapter we begin to assemble the facts of spiritual
transformation, and formulate a conceptual summary of a theory for grasping the
process of spiritual transformation and understanding it in the context and terms of

psychology. Jung says, “…we psychotherapists must occupy ourselves with problems
which, strictly speaking, belong to the theologian. But we cannot leave these questions
for theology to answer; the urgent, psychic needs of suffering people confront us with
them day after day” (Jung 1933 p. 241). In this Chapter we move toward formulation
of a psychological theory of spiritual transformation to assist therapists of all kinds –
psychological and pastoral – to address urgent psychic needs with a spiritual theology.

The First Conceptual Approach: Therapeutic Attitudes

Jung says, “The attitude of the psychotherapist is infinitely more important than
the theories and methods of psychotherapy, and that is why I have been concerned to
make this attitude known” (Jung 1933 p. 243). We have proceeded through this
dissertation with two attitudes. The first attitude is that theology can inform psychology,
and thereby we can expand our understanding of psychological process with added
understanding of spiritual theological process, which taken together and integrated can
provide a comprehensive understanding of spiritual transformation. The second attitude
is that this more integrated, comprehensive understanding of spiritual transformation
can inform and evolve spiritual therapies, including but not limited to psychotherapy,
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spiritual direction, and pastoral counseling, to improve therapeutic facilitation and

assistance of spiritual transformation. We begin to formulate our theory by
approaching it with therapeutic attitude.

What we want is a practical psychology which yields approvable results

– one which helps us to explain things in a way that is justified by the outcome
for the patient. In practical psychotherapy we strive to fit people for life, and we
are not free to set up theories which do not concern our patients or which may
even injure them. Here we come to a question which is often attended by mortal
danger – the question whether we base our explanations upon matter or upon
spirit. We must never forget that everything spiritual is illusion from the
naturalistic standpoint, and that the spirit, to ensure its own existence, must often
deny and overcome an obtrusive, physical fact. If I recognize only naturalistic
values, and explain everything in psychical terms, I shall depreciate, hinder or
even destroy the spiritual development of my patients. And if I hold exclusively
to a spiritual interpretation, then I shall misunderstand and do violence to the
natural man in his right to existence as a physical being. More than a few suicides
in the course of psycho-therapeutic treatment are to be laid at the door of such
mistakes. Whether energy is God, or God is energy, concerns me very little, for
how, in any case, can I know such things? But to give appropriate psychological
explanations – this I must be able to do (Jung 1933 pp. 188-9).

The theory in this dissertation strives to provide possible “appropriate

psychological explanations”. Jung says, “Whereas in its development up to the present
psychology has dealt chiefly with psychic processes in the light of physical causation,
the future task of psychology will be the investigation of their spiritual determinants. But
the natural history of the mind is no further advanced today than was natural science
in the thirteenth century. We have only begun to take scientific note of our spiritual
experiences…We have learned that there are spiritually conditioned processes of
transformation in the psyche…But we have not yet succeeded in determining their
particular uniformities or laws. We only know that a large part of the neuroses arise
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from a disturbance in these processes” (Jung 1933 pp. 194-5). This theory is intended
to accomplish movement toward such scientific note of our spiritual experiences. The
first general approach to our theory, then, we make from the therapeutic31 standpoint.

The Second Conceptual Approach: Primary Focus on Client Process and

Secondary Focus on Therapist Process

The second general approach we make to the theory is found in psychologist

Carl Rogers’ client-centered therapy, as summarized by Culligan. “According to
Rogers, a human being is endowed from birth with an actualizing tendency, an
‘inherent tendency of the organism to develop all its capacities in ways which serve to
maintain and enhance the organism’”(Rogers, Therapy, Personality and Interpersonal
Relationships, p. 196 cited in Culligan 1979 p. 387).

In Rogers’ view of the human organism, the individual possesses within

his actualizing tendency the potential for a constructive direction in life, within
his organismic experiencing the potential for reliably guiding one’s behavior,
and within the organism itself the potential for forming constructive human
values. The individual’s potential for self-direction, behavioral guidance, and
value formation is ordinarily released through relationships with other persons
who experience and communicate to the individual their own genuineness,
caring, and understanding (Culligan 1979 p. 388).

31
The term “therapy”, meaning “treatment intended to relieve or heal a disorder; the treatment
of mental or psychological disorders by psychological means” derives from modern Latin
therapia, from Greek therapeia ‘healing’, from therapeuein ‘minister to, treat medically’. As
we factor theology into our therapeutic approach it is interesting to note that the notion of
ministering is inherent in the terminology of therapy (Oxford 2000).
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Culligan discusses “contributions” of Carl Rogers’ philosophy in explanatory depth in

comparison to St. John’s spiritual direction, and I refer the reader to his work for more
on this subject. For our purposes we note that, in contrast to other psychotherapeutic
schools of thought that focus on therapeutic technique, Rogers contended that it is not
the therapist who heals, but that there is a natural, organismic healing process in the
client that the therapist must foster. Rogers, in effect, shifted the emphasis of
psychotherapy from the external activity of the therapist toward the client, to the innate

healing tendencies and abilities internal to the client. Jung acknowledged the
actualizing tendency in the person in the individuation process, but Rogers carried the
notion further to cite the primacy of the natural process in the person and to put the
streamlining of this process at the forefront of importance for the client, and therefore
at the forefront of psychotherapy.
Gendlin puts it this way. “Psychotherapy is often thought of in terms of the
therapist’s procedure. Clients who go to a Gestalt therapist expect Gestalt therapy…if
we think of psychotherapy as the client’s process, rather than as a type of procedure,
then psychotherapy is whatever helps the client” (Gendlin 1996 pp. 177-8). The
orienting approach to structuring our theory is primarily toward client process, and, as
the client process will determine therapeutic technique, our focus on the therapist and
technique secondary. As the orientation of the dissertation is toward understanding the
process of spiritual transformation in the person, we now observe the spiritual
transformation process within the person in psychotherapy, in our theoretical
formulation.
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The Third Conceptual Approach: All Previous Definitions and

Assumptions Carry Forward

The third and last approach to the theory is to remember that all previous
definitions, processes, and assumptions in the dissertation follow throughout the theory
and its implications, that is, throughout the balance of the dissertation.

A Three-Step Methodological Approach: Construction, Analysis, and

Understanding of the Theory

Our theory begins by looking psychologically at spiritual theology. Our five

frames, seen from both vantage points, provide the structure of our theory. Details of
Jung and John in flesh out of frames in the therapeutic process complete the theory
construction. We then follow the flow of the theory from beginning to end of the life
course, and discuss episodic intervention over the life course. In this way we will see
our theory address spiritual transformation over the life cycle for therapeutic
understanding of spiritual transformation. We will see how spiritual theology fleshes
out psychological framework and enhances therapeutic understanding and effect.
To organize our theory construction of the integration of fleshed-out frameworks
we will discuss the theory in three steps. First we establish the integrated
structure of the theory by setting forth the full framework of individuation fleshed out
by the dark night. This first step of the complete framework will enable us to see the
larger, fuller, integrated picture of the entire life course of spiritual development and
episodes, events, and passages through stages of the developmental life course. We
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will more clearly see the spiritual developmental structure of the person according to
the theory, and thereafter everything will be in terms of the theory.
The second step in the organization of the theory is to analyze the
integrated structure of the theory as we have determined in our above-mentioned
approach to the theory that our primary focus will be on the innate psychic and spiritual
actualizing tendencies and experiential process. So, we will examine the structure
primarily for experiential and actualization functioning of the person, and secondarily
for the contextual, interactional, and interventional functioning of the therapist.
The third and final step in our theory construction is to understand the
integrated theory in terms of spiritual transformation, understood psychologically.
We will see the full fleshing out of the psychology of spiritual process with the
integration of a phenomenologically detailed spiritual theology. The confluence of the
five integrated frames is found in the experience of the person. The yield of the
psychological / theological integration is a fuller, deeper view of the nature and
process of spiritual transformation in the confluence of experience of the human person,
across the life cycle and in episodes of transformation throughout the life cycle.

Step One: Establishing Structure of the Theory as Integration of the Five

Frames

Jungian individuation provides the framework for constructing our theory of

psychology. This psychological framework is then fleshed out by the spiritual theology
of John’s dark night. We have previously identified five primary frames of
psychological individuation framework fleshed out with a detailed spiritual theology,
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and now we put these five fleshed-out frames together in a cohesive structural
arrangement.

The First Frame Fleshed Out: Individuation as Contemporary Framework for Historic
Religious and Cultural Process

There are countless historical parallels to the whole individuation process.

The psychic transformation revealed to Western man by Jung’s analytical psychology
is analogous to religious initiation ceremonies of all the ages, the only difference being
that the rites of initiation use traditional prescriptions and symbols, while the Jungian
individuation process achieves its goal by a natural production of symbols, a
spontaneous movement of the psyche. Historical rites belong to their times and people
with their own cultural premises and relevance to their present. Similar only in their
basic principles to Jung’s conception of individuation, Jung’s concept applies to the
modern Western man. What differs from his method is that either they were religious
acts or were expected to lead to a particular world view represented in them, whereas
in the Jungian individuation process the work on the psyche paves the way for a
spiritual-ethical-religious order which is the consequence of the individuation passage,

and not the content of its culturally constructed intent, so it must be chosen consciously
and freely by the individual.
The individuation process is a modern version of the historically omnipresent
theme of human “psychic transformation”. It provides ideal contemporary framework
for John’s Dark Night. The psychic transformation process as individuation in Jung’s
analytical psychology is most applicable to the process in contemporary times. The
spiritual transformation process as the dark night in John’s theology is constituent to the
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psychic transformation process, so individuation provides the psychic transformation

framework for the spiritual transformation process. John’s dark night is a detailed
process of how spiritual transformation occurs and how the person progresses and what
the person experiences – both of self and of God – when one passes through its stages.
Also, because Jung’s individuation is seen as the most applicable to modern
contemporary “Western man” it provides a vehicle for contemporizing John’s sixteenth
century thought.

Modern psychological understanding contemporizes John’s sixteenth

century theological and what we today would call psychological thought. In
contemporary understandings of the unconscious, John of the Cross in the first book of
The Dark Night often helps persons understand the true motives for their religious
behavior. In particular, psychological understanding of the unconscious frames John’s
understanding of memory as part of the unconscious that can become conscious. John
also understands that religious experiences are part of all life experiences that remain
in human consciousness and influence behavior. John’s spiritual theology fleshes out
the frame of contemporary psychology by expanding its vision to include the human
person’s infinite capacity for transcendent contents including God.
Contemplation and contemplative awareness have contemporary acceptance as
cognitive modes of experience, so are not contrary but are supplemental to reason.
John’s spiritual theology says that reason regulates all human matters except for faith,
which, although not contrary to reason, transcends it. Thus, as contemporarily
understood cognition effects psychic transformation, contemplation as faith modality is
part of cognitive process. Faith is affected by contemplation, faith facilitates cognition
of the transcendent, and spiritual transformation occurs. As cognitive process it occurs
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in the person and not as imposed by cultural and religious rites. As seen through the
eyes of contemporary psychology John’s teachings are set in relation to the
unconscious, and John’s mystical theology is understood in contemporary terms as a
cognitive experience. Spiritual transformation fleshes out, expands, and increases the
scope of psychic transformation, as we see in depth in the second frame.

The Second Frame Fleshed Out: Individuation as Psychic Transformation Frames

Spiritual Transformation

It is the psychic transformative process in the psyche, which lends itself to the
spiritual transformation process. Jungian individuation process is a psychic process, and
spirituality, ethics, and religion are contents being transformed via the psychic
transformative process. Spiritual transformation is a psychic transformation process
applied to spiritual contents. In this way the psychic transformation process of
individuation – which sets the framework for processing spiritual contents – sets the
framework for John’s dark night of spiritual transformation. This frame, in which John’s
dark night fleshes out the Jungian framework corresponds to, or dovetails with, the way
in which Jungian individuation provides temporal framework for the dark night. The

dark night describes the spiritual transformational passages between stages that take
place in spiritual transformation over the life course, which is set in the context of psychic
transformation/individuation of the entire life cycle.
The overarching psychological framework is that of individuation/psychic
transformation process beginning at birth and ending at death. Spiritual transformation,
according to Jung psychologically and John theologically, is the part of the process of
psychic transformation process which deals with spiritual contents or religious contents
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of the psyche. John’s dark night describes the process of spiritual transformation itself,
of how movement occurs in the person from one stage of spiritual consciousness to the
next. Thus we see the framework of individuation / psychic transformation and spiritual
transformation as part of psychic transformation. And we see the dark night process
by which one spiritual stage is transformed into the subsequent stage, a process that
evolves and telescopes from birth to death in the totality of the spiritual transformation
process, constituent to the life course process of psychic transformation.

The five stages of spiritual transformation, of John’s “theological life” are:

beginner, dark night of sense, proficient, dark night of spirit, and perfection. This is
John’s way of delineating the inner, mystical experience of spiritual transformation. We
see the spiritual journey according to John as a life’s journey, and at the same time we
see the dark night as event, episode, passage, or transformational epoch. This spiritual
journey is John’s Ascent of Mount Carmel, which is the life-course spiritual
transformation in the frame of Jungian individuation psychological transformation. The
Dark Night is an experiential passage in the Ascent from one phase to another. This
spiritually transformative life Ascent is the life-span temporal framework for the Dark
Night episodic passages so the frame of individuation / psychic transformation provides
the framework for life course spiritual transformation, which gives context for the dark
night spiritually transformative passages. John’s perception of the passages of the Dark
Night as stages in the spiritual journey over the life course fleshes out the experiential
details of spiritual transformation framed by the life development of psychic
transformation / Jungian individuation.
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The Third Frame Fleshed Out: Individuation as Individual Choice Frames Collective
Religious/Social/Cultural and Spiritual Transformation

The religious or cultural initiation prepares or chooses the initiate for the
religious/cultural result, whereas in the individuation process the person chooses
“consciously and freely” to individuate and whether to participate in religion and
culture. The cultural initiate is taking on collective religious and cultural traditions
through traditionally established social processes. The individuating person is
discovering his/her own psychic contents or processes. Consciousness and choice both
are important in the process.
The personality can only develop when one chooses one’s own way consciously
and makes this an ethical decision. The other ways are conventions of a moral, social,
political, philosophical, or religious nature. What is essential is the life of the individual,
from which personal and social transformation takes place. The human psyche is at the
root of human functioning, and changes in the psyche effect changes in human
functioning. When a person is individuated he/she is anchored in the self, which makes the
relationship of the person to society deeper, more tolerant, more responsible, and more

understanding. The individuating person should not as an individual conflict with the

collective norm, but relate freely and with integrity and maturity with it, maturing in it
as the person matures in him/her self. This enables the individuation process by
allowing more of the world into the person in such a way that the person maintains
individuality and integrity but yet remains freely related to society. The individual
personality, then, must develop a matured relation to one’s self, which then matures
one in relation to society. In individuation both inside self-determination and outside
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adaptation to conditions must be given their due in the transformative processes of the
psyche.
Balanced psychic transformation is inclusive of self-determination, of individual
choice and matured relation to society. As the person determines his/her self, actions,
and relation to society, individual choice frames social, religious, and cultural
participation. The dark night fleshes out this framework well because the first step in
John’s theology of spiritual development is departure of the person from the world; the

second step is development along the road of faith; the third step is arrival at union
with God. This is a determination the person must make for his/her self, and then
proceed in relation to social institutions and to God. The dark night we now understand
as the individual’s break from society, recollection back into the self, and experience
of spiritual transformation in the inner self, apart from society. John explains the
experience of the night, away from society.
Our decision-making is not a product of our intrinsic nature but of our existential
condition of psychological developmental needs and perceived spiritual separation
from God. The condition can be caused or exacerbated or maintained by the person’s
social participation, particularly as in John’s notion of the appetites solely for the sake
of worldly participation as disordered. Being tied up in sensory appetites and their
social engagements externally prevents the availability of the appetites to transform
internally and be fixed on the desire for God. As psychological growth and
development occurs, maturing choices and social relations, the opportunity for spiritual
growth is developed as well. The infusion of the divine into the soul occurs when psychic
and spiritual consciousness is drawn away from society and into the person, the person
becomes conscious of the divine offering of infusion, chooses to accept it by cleaning
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the inner window of perception through contemplation, and the Divine shines in to unify
the self with the Divine. There are active and passive modes of spiritual transformation,
and it is the active mode in which the person has the greatest agency, but even in the
passive mode when the agency is God’s we still must choose to accept His agency in
us and around us in our lives.
The focal point of the transformation of individuals moving away from the social
world of disordered sense and spiritual appetites into the inner world of rightly ordered

appetites of God, is in the stage of the beginner, in the purgative way. This purgative
way is a state of spiritual immaturity that must be transcended through psychic and
spiritual transformative growth. The influence of pleasure and pain of the sensory social
world decreases in the active and passive dark nights of sense, and inner reason and
input of divine will increase, which happens in the active and passive dark nights of
spirit.
In the passive night of sense the person advances from the purgative way to the
illuminative way. This is the most common spiritual state. It is the most clearly defined
stage of spiritual growth, and the critical point of spiritual growth and transformation
because in this transition the person is spiritually influenced and moved to choose to
remove the individual personal attention from the outer world to focus in inner
contemplation. Subsequent phases of the mystical life are simply a further unfolding of
what begins here. The illuminative way is contemplative. It is also characterized by
greater constancy in virtue and habitual remembrance of God, and major movement
toward transformation of the appetites into the appetite of God. At this stage in spiritual
transformation the choice of the individual is crucial, and the transition from focus on
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the outer, social world to the inner, spiritual, individual world makes the difference in
progress toward union with God. This is the crux of spiritual transformation.
The phases of the spiritual life, then, begin with movement from the sense life
through the active night of sense to the stage of the beginner, which is the purgative
way. The passive night of the senses, including recollection as a conscious individual
choice of contemplation, is the transition from the stage of beginner to proficient. The
active and passive nights of the spirit are the transition from the stage of proficient to

perfect. The person moves to contemplation through the active and passive dark nights
of sense and the active dark night of spirit. The person then moves toward the final
stage through the passive dark night of spirit to loving union with God. The stages and
their transformations look like this:

• Sense life
• Beginner / active night of sense / purgative way
• Passive night of sense / recollection
• Proficient / illuminative way
• Active and passive nights of spirit
• Perfect / unitive way

Recollection – including movement from attachment to detachment as part of the

internal phase of recollection, and the transformation of the appetites from creaturely
appetites into the appetite of God – and individual choice are pivotal to this
transformation. And, it is this individual choice that will determine the relationship of
the individual to collective religious, cultural, and social participation. This frame of
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individual choice is pivotal to the individual experience of spiritual transformation.

Recollection moves consciousness from exterior social world, into interior, spiritual
world, when and where contemplation can begin. What will be contemplated is the
spiritual nature of the person, or psychic contents, and God’s spiritual input into the
person.
Of the spiritual nature of the person John says, “God is ever present in the soul”,
as Jung says that the God-archetype or imago dei is ever present in the psyche. Of

spiritual process in the person John says, “God…reveal[s] His hidden presence,” as
Jung says that the person becomes conscious of what was previously the unconscious
archetype of the God-image. Both Jung and John point out that the individual has
choice: in Jung’s thought, to accept and assist the individuation process, or that of
psychic transformation; in John’s thought it is the active nights of spiritual
transformation, in which the agency of the person is active; in John’s thought there is
also choice in the passive nights of spiritual transformation in acceptance of God’s
agency. The spiritual nature of the person is most effectively active when individual
choice is made to participate in the individually developmental process of spiritual
transformation.
The spiritual nature exists within the person, and the spiritual process occurs
within the person. The dark nights may have external facets which society may see, or
which may impact the person’s relationality, but the process of spiritual transformation
happens in the interior. The dark night happens in the interior of the person undergoing
spiritual transformation, so what can be an entirely life-altering event for the person
may be entirely unnoticed or misunderstood by society. The external appearance of a
person may or may not reflect the internal spiritual process, and there are several
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important ramifications. First, a psychologist is trained to observe and detect psychic

process, but unless spiritual contents of the person’s psyche are discussed outwardly
with the therapist, the therapist may miss that interior dimension.
Next, social interaction, particularly religious participation, may or may not
reflect the inner spiritual nature and process of the person. This is a primary reason why
the distinction between religiosity and spirituality must be made, because the nature of
spirituality is that it is an interior process, and the nature of religiosity is that it is an

exterior, collective, social participation. Spiritual transformation and growth may or

may not have anything to do with religious growth, and social, religious growth may
not have anything to do with inner, spiritual growth.
Last and very important is the interior, private, intimate nature of the relationship
of the individual soul to Spirit, that is, of the person to God. This is why for John this
relationship is developed inwardly, in the interior, through recollection and then in
contemplation of God, the Beloved, and the love of the person for God increases
inwardly through the person’s participation in God and spiritual transformation of the
person culminates in union with God through love. Recollection and contemplation can
be thought of as Western Christian ways of Eastern meditation.
By our nature as persons we increase in our awareness of God’s presence in us,
and we develop in our relationship to God by increasing awareness of His presence to
us, and input into us. As we understand this nature and process of spiritual
transformation, we come to know that this process is happening in our interior as part
of our own individuation. Then we can come to know that this process is happening in
the interiors of those persons with whom we interact, and in fact with all human persons.
It is the way we are all children of God and made in God’s image, that is, spiritually,
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in our interior spiritual core. Faith is an interior, passive spiritual process, while works
are exterior spiritual manifestation and religious activity.
We suffer, love, and believe in the interior, and act in the exterior, and our
actions may or may not reflect what is happening in the interior. We forget our interior
spiritual process as we get caught up in the material, sense world day to day, so John’s
process of recollecting ourselves from the outer world and returning to our natural
spiritual interior is essential for our spiritual transformation, and it is the dark night

experience – whether active or passive and especially of sense but also of spirit – which
demands the return to the interior. As we observe and interact with others, we view
their exteriors and begin to think that all that is happening with those others is what we
see of them. We forget that spiritual transformation – at some stage, in some way – is
happening in their interior. When we remember this interiority we can give ourselves
more opportunity to foster our interior spiritual experiences, as well as have
understanding, respect, and compassion and possible companionship for others as
having their own interior spiritual experiences. The therapist must be aware of these
interior dynamics, and that spiritual transformation is a fundamental part of these
dynamics. The person, or client, experiences these dynamics and makes choices in
response to spiritual urgings as part of the overall dynamic of individuation or psychic
transformation of the life course.

The Fourth Frame Fleshed Out: Individuation As Psychic Process of Consciousness

Frames Receipt Of God’s Agency and Input Into Spiritual Transformation

The fourth way in which individuation provides a framework for spiritual

transformation is that of psychic transformative process as framework for receipt of
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God’s agency, or as process of consciousness of God’s input into the person. The task
of the therapist is to assist the client in the process of individuation to bring unconscious
contents of the psyche to consciousness. Consciousness of personal unconscious
contents enables the individuator to become more fully integrated and whole as a
person. Consciousness of impersonal, collective unconscious contents enables the
individuator to become aware that, and how, society impacts him/her, and then of how
the individuator relates to society and its culture.

From the point of view of psychological development, the field of consciousness

is extended therapeutically by investigating and elucidating the material that comes up
from the unconscious realm and associating it with consciousness. The psychological
development of the individual is the result of the expansion of consciousness and
maturation by experience. Conscious realization is the primary principle. Psychic
development is the conscious realization of unconscious contents and their retention in
consciousness. Culture is psychologically considered to be psychic realization in the
broadest, collective sense. Individuation, however, unless it is blocked by special
circumstances, will spontaneously produce everything that is needed for individual
psychic development. That is, it is the nature of the person to individuate, to put the self
into proper relation with society, and for the personal consciousness to become
conscious, or aware, of both personal and collective unconscious contents.
The relation of the conscious and unconscious is a dialectical process, and as
this reciprocal process occurs the person increases in self-knowledge and ego and
personality development. This reciprocal process is uninterrupted, occurring on an
ongoing basis between the unconscious psyche and the conscious mind working to
understand and integrate previously unconscious psychic contents. This plays a crucial
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role in individuation, and in the psychological correspondence of the individual soul to

the archetype of the God-image or imago dei. This is the psychodynamic of
correspondence between the soul and the God-image in the psyche, included in what
is called object-relations in contemporary psychology. The psychodynamics of the soul
are thus revealed beneath religious projections. The soul contains the faculty of
relationship to God, or a correspondence, and spiritual awareness allows the person
to become conscious of this correspondence. The conscious ego self becomes aware

of the unconscious, spiritual self. Spiritual awareness, then, is a primary task of

psychology.
Every archetype is capable of endless development and differentiation, so it is
possible for it to be more or less developed. The archetype is identical with externalized
ideas but remains unconscious in the psyche. The soul by nature possesses a religious
function, and the archetype of the God-image must be conveyed to the conscious mind.
The psychological process of increased psychic awareness can establish a connection
between the sacred figures – including the imago dei – and the personal psyche, as
the images are lying dormant in the unconscious. Psychology has techniques for making
contact with the psyche, and is concerned with the act of conscious seeing of
unconscious contents. It is in the interior experience of the individual that the imprint of
the archetype is made on the psyche, and it is thus that an archetype presupposes and
imprinter. Psychology as the science of the soul assists the conscious mind to become
aware of the unconscious imprints of the archetypes, and this is the case with the
archetype of the God-image or imago dei. This is the psychological or psychic process
by which the individual consciousness receives God’s input or agency into the interior
spiritual life of the person. It is this input which factors into spiritual transformation.
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Conscious knowledge and actual experience of these inner images opens a way
for reason and feeling to gain access to other images which God’s input – through
inner contemplative, mystical, spiritual experiences or through the interior experiencing
of the teachings of religion – offers to the psyche of individuals and collective human
kind. Psychology provides possible therapeutic approaches and techniques for
conscious awareness of a better understanding of all of these things aspects of spiritual
input. This is how his individuating person, in the course of psychic transformation,

processes spiritual contents, the imago dei, God-image or imprint, or God’s input, into
the psyche. The conscious mind can and does come to understand unconscious spiritual
contents in the psyche.
There is a psychic correspondence between the individualized soul and the
impersonal archetype of the God-image. It is as this correspondence develops that
psychic transformation occurs in the previously discussed constant interplay of conscious
and unconscious. When, as in this case, the contents of the psychic transformation are
spiritual and religious contents, we see that a spiritual transformation has occurred
within the framework of the process of psychic transformation. The person has become
more conscious of the internal correspondence, or relationship of the soul to the
archetype of the God-image, or in religious and mystical, spiritual terms, to God. This
psychic transformation of conscious awareness must take place for the archetype of the
God-image, or God, to become internalized to the personal self, rather than remaining
an externalized religious projection.
The internalization of religious symbols such as the God-image must occur for
the individual to have the actual experience of religious contents of the psyche, and
this is how and where personal religious experience, or in our terms spiritual
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transformation, is found. When it is only experienced as externalized religious

projection – as in historical religious and cultural rites of initiation, or in any religious
practice – then it is only cultural compliance and religious dogma, empty of human
meaning. Meaning, psychologically, is in inner human experience, which occurs
psychologically through the process of consciousness in psychic transformation.
Spiritual transformation occurs as consciousness of spiritual contents, such as the God-
image, in the framework of psychic transformation, which is constituent to the

individuation process
Religious attitude plays a crucial part in the therapy of psychic illnesses. The
psyche spontaneously produces images with a religious content, and it is by nature
religious. Individuation is the psychic transformational framework in which spiritual
transformation occurs, or needs to occur. Jung’s scientific, objective framework of
psychic transformation of the relationship of the intellect, or consciousness, to
unconscious God-images in the human psyche, sets the framework for understanding
God’s input into the psyche, which we have understood as John’s dark night.
Conscious realization is the dialectical relationship of the unconscious /
conscious relationship, and its function in individuation. It is also the juncture of the
relationship of psychic transformation and spiritual transformation. There is also a
dialectical relationship between turning inwards and conscious participation in interior
happenings, and turning outwards to happenings in the outside world. Both the interior
and exterior realms are essential to the full experience of the individuation process.
Nothing can come exclusively either from within or from without. If it comes from
outside, it becomes a profound inner experience, and if it comes from inside it becomes
an outer happening. Spiritual transformation is a process, and is constituent to the
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psychic transformation process, but the process is bi-directional. Spiritual transformation

as an inner process can occur internally first in time, and then next in time the person’s
outer world is affected. Or, there can be an external event that is impetus for inner
transformative process. In both cases the transformation itself is internal, but the impetus
for the transformation can come from within or without. In psychological terms this is
the way in which the individual relates to self and society, culture, and religion, and to
the religious function of the psyche, or spiritual transformation. This can either be the

agency of the person to actively cause movement, or can be the agency of God to
passively cause movement.
It is within individuation and its ongoing process of psychic transformation that
the person can be receptive to, and receiving of, God’s input. The person can open to,
and then be open to, the input and dynamics of God’s agency in the person and in the
life of the person. Receptivity to God’s input into the psychic/spiritual awareness or
consciousness of the person and into the existential and experiential reality of life
experience can begin only after conscious realization of the archetype of the God-
image in the psyche, when the soul begins to consider spiritual growth toward eventual
God-union. Increasingly conscious awareness in the psyche provides the framework in
the person in which God-awareness/consciousness/realization and thereby receptivity
to God’s input can occur.
Actual experience fleshes out the natural mode of psychic and spiritual
transformation by precipitating the experience of the actual transformation. The dark
night as the passive way of spiritual transformation allows for the stilling of personal
activity in deference to God’s activity toward the person. The memory is an interior
archive or repository, closely associated with the interior sense faculties of imagination
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and fantasy. It reflects on preserved images and ideas, so having the power to change
them. Attachment to these images causes negative emotional damage, whereas
detachment from them frees the inner self to receive God in contemplation. Once freed,
the memory, intellect and will has infinite capacity to receive God’s input, or psychic
imprints. The conscious/unconscious dialectic has the ability to be receptive to God’s
input and consciousness, once freed in contemplation, can apprehend the God-image
in the psyche.

Contemplation allows for divine enlightenment. As healing in psychotherapy

comes through making the unconscious conscious, so contemplation brings to light the
disorders of the soul so that they may be clearly seen, expelled and annihilated.
Contemplation is the psychic and spiritual mode of choosing to direct one’s focus
inward, through recollection and God-directedness, and of receptivity (inactivity, or
passivity) to God’s agency and activity in relation to the contemplative person.
Contemplation, or mystical theology, allows for the input of God into the psyche, and
consciousness of it enables spiritual transformation of the person. We are reminded of
our original dignity and spiritual nature and eventually, through consciousness,
approach spiritual perfection or union with God. In both nights of sense and spirit, what
begins as active agency of the person evolves into passivity of the persona and
receptivity of God’s activity in and toward the person. The psyche transforms from
personal activity to passivity and receptivity and the input received causes growth and
further psychic/spiritual transformation. God’s input can be received into the
contemplative mode created in the framework of psychic transformative process. Here
is movement from the active mode of the dark night to the passive mode, in both sense
and spirit. Here also is movement from personal, individual agency to
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contemplation/passivity/receptivity of God’s divine agency. And, in the psychological

concept of the individuating psyche we see movement of contents of the collective
unconscious, specifically of the archetype of the God-image, to the personal conscious,
or into the individuator’s conscious awareness, and subsequent incorporation into the
newly transformed psyche and its life expression.

The Fifth Frame Fleshed Out: Individuation As Life Span Temporal Frame for the Dark
Night as Life Event or Passage

The fifth major framework is temporal. The psychic process of individuation is a

process occurring over the course of the life span, beginning at birth, maturing,
transitioning in mid-life, maturing, and ending at the death of the individual. Though
episodes throughout the course of the life contribute to it and affect it, individuation is
not regarded as episodic, or event-specific, but rather as a life-long maturation process
of self-realization.
Although the spiritual transformation process is a life-long passage through
phases of spiritual development, the dark night transition from phase to phase is
episodic. It is in passing through one or many dark nights that the person transforms

from one spiritual developmental phase into the next. The dark night is transformative,
can be of sense or spirit, and can occur innumerable times throughout the life course,
but it in itself is an episode, or event, in the overall life course of the individual’s spiritual
transformation.
This is perhaps the primary way in which individuation across the life span, and
the events/episodes of the dark nights – dovetail to form a more comprehensive
understanding of spiritual transformation throughout the life, as experienced in a life
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event, and as processed psychologically and theologically. In this way at this

dovetailing juncture we see how theological contents and processes are experienced
in the psyche of the person in the individual’s overall natural life process of psychic,
that is, psychological, transformation. We see how the spiritual nature of psychic
contents is transformed spiritually through psychological process. We see the person in
psychological and spiritual relation to God, and God to the person, in the dialectic of
consciousness with the unconscious.

Spiritual contents of the psyche transform not only in the time of the dark night,
but also through the processes of the dark night. In the overarching frame of psychic
transformation / individuation, spiritual transformation occurs as spiritual contents of
the psyche make passage through the successive dark night processes: sense and spirit;
active and passive; beginner, proficient, perfect.
That is, psychic transformation occurs as a life process, and spiritual
transformation, that is, psychic or conscious transformation of spiritual contents of the
psyche, also occurs as a life process, constituent to psychic transformation. The dark
night is the process – as well as the time – in which spiritual transformation occurs,
which in turn transforms the overall psyche. When spiritual transformation occurs in the
psyche, the psyche itself is transformed in such a way that a new psychic self-
understanding and perspective, and resulting personality, has to be synthesized from
the integration of the previous consciousness and self into a newer, more evolved
consciousness, that is, a spiritual consciousness, and sense of self. A new self is
synthesized by the newly transformed psyche, having attained newly transformed spirit,
so that a more conscious self develops to live more consciously, in terms of the
conscious/unconscious dialectic. This, in contemporary terms, is spiritual growth.
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Spiritual growth, or the process by which spiritual transformation happens and exactly
what psychic/spiritual contents or inner material is transformed, must be understood for
two main reasons. One reason is because God calls us to spiritual growth to attain
union with him. The second reason is because those who respond to God’s call to
spiritual growth must have assistance on the way, and that assistance must come from
an understanding of the process of spiritual growth.
The framework of individuation views the human person as an individual

participating in, and activating, the individual self through self-actualization and self-
realization, a psychic transformation which begins in the first half of life with self-
realization, and completes in the second half with realization of self in relation to the
collective, outer world; of consciousness in realization of the unconscious, including
archetypes, of which the archetype of the God-image is one. The dark night describes
the dynamics of the process of spiritual growth and all of the psychic and spiritual
contents or matter which are part of that process, and also describes that portion of
individuation in which the self comes to realization of, and relationality with, the
archetype of the God-image. The dark night provides a detailed understanding of how
that realization of God occurs, and how God relationality progresses, which fleshes
out the psychological framework of individuation with spiritual dynamics.

Framework Summary

We have now seen all five frames together in completed theoretical framework,
with the integration of the psychology of transformation in individuation and spiritual
theology of spiritual transformation in the dark night completed in each frame of the
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framework. As we proceed to analyze and understand the structure we will find the
way that the meld of the five frames is accomplished and yields the unified structure of
our theory of the psychological understanding spiritual transformation.

The second step in the organization of the theory is to analyze the

integrated structure of the theory, as we have determined in our above-mentioned
approach to the theory that our primary focus will be on the innate psychic and spiritual
actualizing tendencies and experiential process. So, we will examine the structure
primarily for experiential and actualization functioning of the person, and secondarily
for the contextual, interactional, and interventional functioning of the therapist.

Step Two: The Integrated Structure of the Theory Analyzed for

Experience of Persons and Interaction of Therapist

Having a clear view of the structure of the theory per se in the five frames, we
must find the way to unite the five frames into one integrated and cohesive structure.
We can consider options such as temporal order, in time over the life course or in
sequence of experiencing of episodes and phases; priority of experiencing; topically;
historical through contemporary times; religious, cultural and social themes; putting
psychic process into dialogue with spiritual process; or other options stemming from the
content or possible relation of the frames. But none of these or other options considered
has as their primary consideration or explication the phenomenological world of the
client as person and the role of the transformation process in the experiential world of
the person. Having agreed that our primary focus would be the inner process of the
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client in therapy, we will primarily discuss the client’s process as the experiential world
of the person, and only secondarily discussing related therapist function.
Experience, according to Culligan is “the subject matter of spiritual direction”.
He says, “Experience refers to the ‘here and now,’ to what is happening in the present
moment of a person’ life rather than to the sum total of past events. Experience implies
process, the ebb and flow of whatever is occurring within a person at any given moment
of his life” (Culligan 1982 p. 135). We will use his definition of experience in the

person, formed from that of Carl Rogers, as our meaning of the term. Culligan describes
the primacy of experience when he advocates its exploration in future research.

Future research should explore the implications of Rogers’ concept of

experience for John’s theory of spiritual direction. The main hypothesis in this
research would be that God present within the human person guides the person
to union with himself principally through the person’s experience. As a person
becomes increasingly aware of his experiencing process and especially the
personal meanings implicit in his feelings, he becomes more attuned to God’s
guidance in his life. Accordingly, the human spiritual director fulfills his role as
an instrument of God’s guidance by assisting the directee to discover the
personal meanings implicit in his or her experiencing process, for these meanings
reveal God’s unique guidance of the directee, the way in which he guides one
person to divine union differently from every other person (Culligan 1982 p.
136).

In this dissertation experience is of prime consideration from the therapeutic standpoint,

and is the primary way in which there is confluence of the five frames.
The client or person we are considering, in the process of spiritual transformation
may experience each, any, or all of the five frames, in some order, at some time, in
some way. The five frames for purpose of review are:
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1. Individuation as Contemporary Framework for Historic Religious and Cultural

Process
2. Individuation as Psychic Transformation Frames Spiritual Transformation
3. Individuation as Individual Choice Frames Collective Religious / Social / Cultural
and Spiritual Transformation
4. Individuation As Psychic Process of Consciousness Frames Receipt Of God’s

Agency and Input Into Spiritual Transformation

5. Individuation As Life Span Temporal Frame for the Dark Night as Life Event or
Passage

In the previous section we saw each of the frames described theoretically, per se, and
we now describe them as personal phenomena, to see how spiritual transformation
occurs in the experience of the person, and to consider therapist interaction. The frames
are now renamed and identified in terms of the experiential process of the person.

The First Integrated Frame: The Contemporary Psychological Revision of Personal

Participation in Traditional Historic Religious and Cultural Rites of Initiation and
Passage

The psyche of the person moves spontaneously, naturally, as psychic

transformation occurs across the life cycle of the person. Internal symbols are produced
in the natural course of the individuation process, in the person. Personal spirituality,
religion, and ethics have an order established in the person by the person, having been
chosen consciously and freely in the individuation process of psychic transformation.
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Although this psychic transformation parallels historic, religious and cultural initiation
and passage ceremonies, the individuation transformation occurs internally,
individually, via the choices of the person. The person chooses to respond or not to
respond to spontaneously produced internal symbols, or to externally imposed
symbols. The external symbols can be traditional prescriptions and symbols, or
culturally produced premises, symbols, and worldviews, but the person over the course
of the influences chooses what their consequences will be based on the person’s own

psychic transformation. The person’s choices form the psychic order of the person,
throughout the individuation life process. The person’s own worldview is chosen in one’s
own individuation process, and the influence of culture and religion are chosen as part
of the construction of the person’s worldview.
The psyche of the person is experienced by the person as the personal conscious,
which has been discussed at length in its relation to the unconscious in previous
chapters, but we revisit this relation here in the realm of experience to say that
unconscious contents, both personal and collective, are a part of the personal
consciousness, although not always entirely interactive with the personal consciousness.
In relation to culture, society, and religion, the person experiences not only themselves,
but all of the symbols, practices, traditions, passages, imprints, and expectations of the
social, collective world. The person determines for him/herself if and if so how the
external social world may or will be internalized and recognized in the individual
personal experience. This aspect of the frames is dealt with in depth in Frame Three
from the standpoint of personal choice framing social tradition, but it needs mention
here because the personal choice dynamic in contemporary times – primarily in
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Western cultures but increasingly so in Eastern cultures becoming Westernized – has

become more emphasized as emphasis has come off of social and cultural tradition.
The contemporary person experiences an existential reality very different today
from his/her ancestors who were more influenced by social expectations and tradition
for the making of choices. In the past the person was bound by external expectations
and social structures to make decisions and behave in acceptable ways. In
contemporary times we are more free, both within ourselves and from external

collective cultural influences, to decide our actions. The balance of influence on the
person has shifted over time from historic weight on culture and collective participation,
to contemporary emphasis on individual choice for behavior. As the person individuates
s/he becomes more self-aware, more self-directed, and more focused on self-
actualization than on actualizing of cultural values. Personal values, feelings,
knowledge, and experiences loom far larger in personal consciousness as determinants
of behavior than have the social injunctions of the past. It is critical to note this historical
evolution because of its sweeping effects on the individual person not only in terms of
personal experience but in existential relation to society. The individual is immersed in
the evolution of this social transformation, which has an extensive effect on the
individual and individual transformation, psychically and spiritually, as we will continue
to see in Frame Three.
We said previously that in the dark night the person comes to understand his/her
true motives or unconscious motives for behavior. The more conscious the person is of
his/her inner motives, the more aware the person can become of why s/he chooses
and behaves in his/her way. The psychological movement from unconscious to
conscious is how the person psychically becomes more aware of spiritual contents,
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which influences the spiritual transformation of the person. With increased

consciousness the person has increased knowledge of self, motives, and behavior, and
greater psychic and spiritual awareness opens the consciousness to greater psychic and
spiritual transformation. With greater emphasis on the contemporary individuation
process as our mode of life experience, and of personal dimension of experience
outweighing social influences the person experiences greater freedom to choose, and
then in the evolved social environment experiences greater freedom to behave, live,

and experience according to those choices. This frame not only sets historical context
for our modern notions of interaction with society, but also establishes an environment
of greater freedom for the person to experience and to manifest the personal self
through choice and behavior.
Personal cognition effects the psychic transformation of the person, and as our
cognitive world increases our psychic awareness does as well, paving the way for our
spiritual awareness to increase through contemplation, faith experiences, and the
person’s cognitive process. Faith is effected in the person through contemplation, it
facilitates cognition of the transcendent by the person, and in the person spiritual
transformation occurs. As cognitive process spiritual transformation occurs in the person
and not as imposed by cultural and religious rites. Here there is not only an evolution
of shifting balance from social to individual, but also an evolution of increased
opportunity for personal awareness, greater consciousness, heightened cognitive
processes which provides expanded opportunities for psychic and spiritual growth and
transformation.
The therapist can be of help here in helping the person to be aware of social
and cultural influences, to companion the person in his/her inward journey, to be a
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sounding board for possible decisions and to maintain awareness of social contexts
and behavioral ramifications. Self-responsibility, ethics, values, and other kinds of
measuring sticks for behavior come into play here, and the therapist can assist the
person in development of new ways of measuring behavior, in place of social
constraints. The person is experiencing not only a contemporary freedom for decision
making and behavior, and new contemporary contents about which to decide, but also
is developing a new process for decision-making and new evaluative criteria, and the

therapist’s guidance – psychic and spiritual – here can be invaluable.

The Second Integrated Frame: The Person Experiences Spiritual Transformation In

Episodes, Phases, And Passages, As Part Of Psychic Transformation

In the experience of the person spirituality, ethics, and religion are psychological
contents being transformed via the psychic transformative process. When the person
undergoes a psychic transformation in regard to spiritual contents, it is a spiritual
transformation for the person. The dark night is a phase of spiritual transformation for
the person, whose psyche is being transformed in relation to spiritual contents of the
psyche. The dark night describes the spiritual transformational passages between

stages in a person’s life that take place in spiritual transformation over the life course.
The overarching psychology of the person is the individuation/psychic
transformation process which begins at birth and ending at death. The person
experiences a continuity of consciousness, changing over time but in a flow of
maturation through experiences and because of an increase in psychic awareness.
These experiences include all areas of life and events of all kinds over the course of
the life cycle, and spiritual episodes, phases, and passages are constituent to this
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overall life process. Any kind of life event can cause transformation in the person in
varying ways and at varying levels, intellectually, psychically, emotionally, physically,
and spiritually. And, any of these kinds of events can cause the person to be profoundly
transformed, but none of them is as intense and profound – can be as total – as that
kind of spiritual transformation which we have come to understand from St. John, as
total transformation of the person in God, via transformation of the creaturely appetites
into the appetites of God, and eventual union with God through love.

Thus the spirituality of the person when transformed causes a total psychic
transformation and life transformation. As the person experiences the spiritual influence
and transforms, it occurs within the overall consciousness of the person, and influences
the psyche to transform. The psychic awareness of the person is changed to have new
spiritual underpinnings, and from these underpinnings and changed consciousness the
person experiences not only themselves as changed, but experiences his/her entire
personal world as transformed.
The person experiences one spiritual stage transforming into the subsequent
stage, from beginner, dark night of sense, proficient, dark night of spirit, and perfection,
as growth, increased awareness, new levels of comfort and stability, purged mind and
emotions, lightness of spirit and heart. The spiritual journey of the person according to
John is a life’s journey, and the dark night as event, episode, passage, or
transformational epoch in the person’s life course of spiritual transformation. The person
experiences the dark night as an experiential passage from one phase in the spiritual
life to the next. As the person passes from one phase through a passage to another
and another, the person experiences a spiritually transformed life. As the person is
experiencing psychological individuation the dark night focuses spiritually
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transformative passages and the sequence of passages results in the life course of
spiritual transformation in the person. As spiritual experiences pass, the psyche
becomes more aware of its spiritual dimensions, and the person’s consciousness grows
in relation to personal spirituality.

The Third Integrated Frame: The Contemporary Individuating Person Chooses

Participation in Historically Religious, Cultural, and Social Processes

The religious or cultural initiation prepares or chooses the initiate for the
religious/cultural result, whereas in the individuation process the person chooses
“consciously and freely” to individuate and whether to participate in religion and
culture. The cultural initiate is taking on collective religious and cultural traditions
through traditionally established social processes. The individuating person is
discovering his/her own psychic contents or processes. Consciousness and choice both
are important in the process.
The personality can only develop when the person chooses his/her own way
consciously and makes this an ethical decision. The other ways are conventions of a
moral, social, political, philosophical, or religious nature. What is essential is the life of

the individual, from which personal and social transformation takes place. The personal
psyche is at the root of the functioning of the person, and changes in the psyche effect
changes in personal functioning. When a person is individuated he/she is anchored in the
self, which makes the relationship of the person to society effective, deeper, more tolerant,

more responsible, and more understanding.

The individuating person according to Jung should not as an individual conflict
with the collective norm, but relate freely and with integrity and maturity with it,
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maturing in it as the person matures in him/her self. This enables the individuation
process by allowing more of the world into the person in such a way that the person
maintains individuality and integrity but yet remains freely related to society. The
individual personality, then, must develop a matured relation to one’s self, which then
matures one in relation to society. In individuation both inside self-determination and
outside adaptation to conditions must be given their due in the transformative processes
of the psyche.

Balanced psychic transformation is inclusive of self-determination, of individual

choice and matured relation to society. As the person determines his/her self, actions,
and relation to society, individual choice determines social, religious, and cultural
participation. The first step in John’s theology of spiritual development is departure of
the person from the world; the second step is development along the road of faith; the
third step is arrival at union with God. This is a determination the person must make for
his/her self, and then proceed in relation to social institutions and to God. The dark
night we now understand as the individual’s break from society, personal recollection
back into the self, and experience of spiritual transformation in the inner self, apart
from society. John explains the experience of the dark night as internal and personal,
away from society.
Our decision-making is not a product of our intrinsic nature but of our existential
condition of psychological developmental needs and perceived spiritual separation
from God. The condition can be caused or exacerbated or maintained by the person’s
social participation, particularly as in John’s notion of the appetites solely for the sake
of worldly participation as disordered. Being tied up in sensory appetites and their
social engagements externally prevents the availability of the appetites to transform
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internally and be fixed on the desire for God. As psychological growth and
development occurs, maturing choices and social relations, the opportunity for spiritual
growth is developed as well. The infusion of the divine into the soul occurs when psychic
and spiritual consciousness is drawn away from society and into the person, the person
becomes conscious of the divine offering of infusion, chooses to accept it by cleaning
the inner window of perception through contemplation, and the Divine shines in to unify
the self with the Divine. There are active and passive modes of spiritual transformation,

and it is the active mode in which the person has the greatest agency, but even in the
passive mode when the agency is God’s we still must choose to accept His agency in
us and around us in our lives.
When the person begins moving away from the social world of disordered sense
and spiritual appetites into one’s inner world of rightly ordered appetites of God, John
calls this the stage of the spiritual beginner who is in the way of purgation, of purging
the self of social appetites. This purgative way is a state of spiritual immaturity that must
be transcended through psychic and spiritual personally transformative growth. The
influence of pleasure and pain of the sensory social world decreases in the active and
passive dark nights of sense, and inner personal reason and input of divine will into the
psyche into or into proximity of the personal will increases in the active and passive
dark nights of spirit.
In the passive night of sense the person advances from the purgative way to the
illuminative way. This is the most common spiritual state, according to John. It is the
most clearly defined stage of spiritual growth, and is the critical point of spiritual growth
and transformation because in this transition the person is spiritually influenced and
moved to choose to remove the individual personal attention from the outer world to
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focus in inner contemplation. Subsequent phases of the mystical life are simply a further
unfolding of what begins here. The illuminative way is contemplative. In it the person
develops greater constancy in virtue and habitual remembrance of God, and
accomplishes major transformation of the appetites toward becoming the appetite of
God. At this stage in spiritual transformation the choice of the individual is crucial, and
the transition from focus on the outer, social world to the inner, spiritual, individual
world makes the difference in progress toward union with God. This is the crux of

spiritual transformation in the person.

The phases of the person in the spiritual life, then, begin with movement from
the sense life, via the active night of sense, to the stage of the beginner, or purgative
way. The passive night of the senses, including recollection as a conscious individual
choice of contemplation, is the transition from the stage of beginner to proficient. The
active and passive nights of the spirit are the transition of the person from proficient to
perfect. The person moves to contemplation through the active and passive dark nights
of sense and the active dark night of spirit. The person then moves toward the final
stage through the passive dark night of spirit to loving union with God.
Recollection – including movement from personal attachment to detachment, and
the transformation of the appetites from creaturely appetites into the appetite of God
– and individual choice are pivotal to this process of spiritual transformation. And, it is
this individual choice that will determine the relationship of the individual to collective
religious, cultural, and social participation. Recollection as personal, individual choice
is pivotal to the individual experience of spiritual transformation. In recollection the
person chooses to move his/her consciousness from exterior social world, into interior,
spiritual world, when and where contemplation can begin. What will be contemplated
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is the inner, spiritual nature of the person, or spiritual content of the psyche, and God’s
spiritual input into the person.
Of the spiritual nature of the person John says, “God is ever present in the soul”,
as Jung says that the God-archetype or imago dei is ever present in the psyche. The
person experiences this as a growing awareness of God through spiritually
transformative experiences. Of spiritual process in the person John says,
“God…reveal[s] His hidden presence,” as Jung says that the person becomes conscious

of what was previously the unconscious archetype of the God-image. God can be
psychically experienced or “seen” by the psyche as spiritual stages are moved through.
Both Jung and John point out that the individual has choice: in Jung’s thought, to accept
and assist the individuation process, or that of psychic transformation; in John’s thought
it is the active nights of spiritual transformation, in which the agency of the person is
active; in John’s thought there is also choice in the passive nights of spiritual
transformation in acceptance of God’s agency. The spiritual nature of the person is
most effectively active when individual choice is made to participate in the individually
developmental process of spiritual transformation.
The spiritual nature exists within the person, and the spiritual process occurs
within the person. The dark nights may have external facets which society may see, or
which may impact the person’s relationality, but the process of spiritual transformation
happens to the person in the interior. The dark night happens in the interior of the
person undergoing spiritual transformation, so what can be an entirely life-altering
event for the person may be entirely unnoticed or misunderstood by society. The
external appearance of a person may or may not reflect the internal spiritual process,
and there are several important ramifications. First, a psychologist is trained to observe
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and detect psychic process, but unless spiritual contents of the person’s psyche are
discussed outwardly with the therapist, the therapist may miss that interior dimension.
Next, social interaction, particularly religious participation, may or may not
reflect the inner spiritual nature and process of the person. This is a primary reason why
the distinction between religiosity and spirituality must be made, because the nature of
spirituality is that it is an interior process, and the nature of religiosity is that it is an
exterior, collective, social participation. Spiritual transformation and growth may or

may not have anything to do with religious growth, and social, religious growth may
not have anything to do with inner, spiritual growth. Only the person in whose life this
transformation is occurring will know, and only that person can decide how the
personal relationship with the external world will transform. Therapeutic interaction
here is immensely helpful to enable the person to see how his/her social relationships
are progressing, and how the relationships are changing over time with increased
spiritual awareness. And, the inner process of the person can be supported and
encouraged, regardless of whether or not society understands the personal
transformation. As the person is encouraged in his/her inner processes the person can
become more in tune with his/her personal spiritual world and development. This can
be an important part of spiritual transformation when the person is encouraged and
increasingly open to the process.
Last and very important is the interior, private, intimate nature of the relationship
of the individual soul to Spirit, that is, of the person to God. This is why for John this
relationship is developed inwardly, in the interior, through recollection and then in
contemplation of God, the Beloved, and the love of the person for God increases
inwardly through the person’s participation in God and spiritual transformation of the
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person culminates in union with God through love. Recollection and contemplation can
be thought of as Western Christian ways of Eastern meditation.
By our nature as persons we increase in our awareness of God’s presence in us,
and we develop in our relationship to God by increasing awareness of His presence to
us, and input into us. As we understand this nature and process of spiritual
transformation, we come to know that this process is happening in our interior as part
of our own individuation. Then we can come to know that this process is happening in

the interiors of those persons with whom we interact, and in fact with all human persons.
It is the way we are all children of God and made in God’s image, that is, spiritually,
in our interior spiritual core. Faith is an interior, passive spiritual process, while works
are exterior spiritual manifestation and religious activity.
We suffer, love, and believe in the interior, and act in the exterior, and our
actions may or may not reflect what is happening in the interior. We forget our interior
spiritual process as we get caught up in the material, sense world day to day, so John’s
process of recollecting ourselves from the outer world and returning to our natural
spiritual interior is essential for our spiritual transformation, and it is the dark night
experience – whether active or passive and especially of sense but also of spirit – which
demands the return to the interior. As we observe and interact with others, we view
their exteriors and begin to think that all that is happening with those others is what we
see of them. We forget that spiritual transformation – at some stage, in some way – is
happening in their interior. When we remember this interiority we can give ourselves
more opportunity to foster our interior spiritual experiences, as well as have
understanding, respect, and compassion and possible companionship for others as
having their own interior spiritual experiences. The therapist must be aware of these
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interior dynamics, and that spiritual transformation is a fundamental part of these

dynamics. The person, or client, experiences these dynamics and makes choices in
response to spiritual urgings as part of the overall dynamic of individuation or psychic
transformation of the life course.

The Fourth Integrated Frame: The Person Receives God’s Input as Spiritual
Transformation in Psychic Transformation of Individuation

The person receives God’s agency as the person becomes conscious of God’s
input into the person. Spiritual transformation occurs with this consciousness of God’s
input, and the spiritual transformation in the person cause psychic transformation in the
individuating person. From the point of view of psychological development, the
personal field of consciousness is extended therapeutically by investigating and
elucidating the material that comes up from the unconscious realm and associating it
with consciousness. The psychological development of the person is the result of the
expansion of consciousness and maturation by experience. Conscious realization is the
primary principle.
Psychic development is the conscious realization of unconscious contents and the
retention of those contents in consciousness. Individuation as psychic transformation will
spontaneously produce everything that is needed for psychic development of the
person. That is, it is the nature of the person to individuate, to put the self into proper
relation with society, and for the personal consciousness to become conscious, or
aware, of both personal and collective unconscious contents. The task of the therapist
is to assist the client in the process of individuation to bring unconscious contents of the
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psyche to consciousness of the person. Consciousness of personal unconscious contents

enables the individuator to become more fully integrated and whole as a person.
The relation of the conscious and unconscious is a dialectical process within the
person, and as this reciprocal process occurs the person increases in self-knowledge
and ego and personality development. The person experiences this reciprocal process
as an ongoing dialogue between the unconscious psyche and the conscious mind
working to understand and integrate previously unconscious psychic contents. Much of

spiritual contents and God’s input into the personal psyche are initially not consciously
known to the person, and with recollection and contemplation these contents rise to
conscious awareness in the person. The person begins to realize his/her relationship
or correspondence to God. It is spiritual awareness that allows the person to become
conscious of this previously unconscious correspondence. In this way the conscious ego
of the personal self becomes aware of the unconscious, spiritual self. A therapist can
assist the psychological or psychic process by which the individual consciousness
receives God’s input or agency into the interior spiritual life of the person. It is this
receipt of God’s input that factors into spiritual transformation. In this way the therapist
can assist the spiritual transformation of the person.
Conscious knowledge and actual experience in the person of these inner images
opens a way for reason and feeling to gain access to other images which God’s input
– through inner contemplative, mystical, spiritual experiences or through the interior
experiencing of the teachings of religion – offers to the psyche of the person. By
receiving such input the consciousness of the person can come to understand
unconscious spiritual contents in the psyche of the person.
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It is within individuation and its ongoing process of psychic transformation that

the person can be receptive to, and receiving of, God’s input. The person can open to,
and then be open to, the input and dynamics of God’s agency in the person and in the
life of the person. Receptivity to God’s input into the psychic/spiritual awareness or
consciousness of the person and into the existential and experiential reality of life
experience can begin only after conscious realization of the archetype of the God-
image in the psyche, when the soul begins to consider spiritual growth toward eventual

God-union. Increasingly conscious awareness in the psyche provides the framework in

the person in which God-awareness/consciousness/realization and thereby receptivity
to God’s input can occur.
The dark night as the passive way of spiritual transformation allows for the stilling
of personal activity in deference to God’s activity toward the person. The memory is an
interior archive or repository, closely associated with the interior sense faculties of
imagination and fantasy. It reflects on preserved images and ideas, so has the power
to change them. Personal attachment to these images causes negative emotional
damage, whereas detachment from them frees the inner self to receive God in
contemplation. Once freed, the memory, intellect and will has infinite capacity to
receive God’s input, or psychic imprints. The conscious/unconscious inner, personal
dialectic has the ability to be receptive to God’s input and consciousness, once freed
in contemplation, the consciousness of the person can apprehend the God-image in the
psyche.
Contemplation allows for divine enlightenment. As healing in psychotherapy
comes through making the unconscious conscious, so contemplation brings to light the
disorders of the soul so that they may be clearly seen, expelled and annihilated.
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Contemplation is the psychic and spiritual mode of the person’s choosing to direct
his/her focus inward, through recollection and God-directedness, and of receptivity
(inactivity, or passivity) to God’s agency and activity in relation to the contemplative
person. Contemplation, or mystical theology, allows for the input of God into the
psyche, and consciousness of it enables spiritual transformation of the person. We are
reminded of our original dignity and spiritual nature and eventually, through
consciousness, approach spiritual perfection or union with God. In both nights of sense

and spirit, what begins as active agency of the person evolves into passivity of the
persona and receptivity of God’s activity in and toward the person.
The personal psyche transforms from personal activity to passivity and receptivity
and the input received causes growth and further psychic/spiritual transformation.
God’s input can be received into the contemplative mode created in the framework of
psychic transformative process. Here is movement from the active mode of the dark
night to the passive mode, in both sense and spirit. Here also is movement from
personal, individual agency to contemplation/passivity/receptivity of God’s divine
agency. And, in the psychological concept of the individuating psyche we see
movement of contents of the collective unconscious, specifically of the archetype of the
God-image, to the personal conscious, or into the individuator’s conscious awareness,
and subsequent incorporation into the newly transformed psyche and its expression in
the life of the person.

The Fifth Integrated Frame: The Psychic Life Course of the Person Transformed in
Spiritual Passages Through the Dark Nights
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The psychic process of individuation is a process occurring in the person over

the course of the life span, beginning at birth, maturing, transitioning in mid-life,
maturing, and ending at the death of the person. Though episodes throughout the
course of the life contribute to it and affect it, individuation is not regarded as episodic,
or event-specific, but rather as a life-long maturation process of self-realization.
Although the spiritual transformation process is a life-long passage through
phases of spiritual development, the dark night transition from phase to phase is

periodic and episodic. It is in passing through one or many dark nights that the person
transforms from one spiritual developmental phase into the next. The dark night is
transformative, can be of sense or spirit, and can occur innumerable times throughout
the life course, but in itself is an episode, or event, or period or phase in the overall life
course of the individual’s spiritual transformation. Theological contents and processes
are experienced in the psyche of the person in the individual’s overall natural life
process of psychic transformation. The spiritual nature of psychic contents is transformed
spiritually through psychological process. The person transforms in psychological and
spiritual relation to God, and the relation of God to the person changes, in the growth
of consciousness through the self-realization of the unconscious. Spiritual contents of
the psyche of the person transform not only in the time of the dark night, but also
through the processes of the dark night, as spiritual contents of the psyche make
passage through the successive dark night processes: sense and spirit; active and
passive; beginner, proficient, perfect.
That is, psychic transformation occurs as a life process, and spiritual
transformation, that is, psychic or conscious transformation of spiritual contents of the
psyche, also occurs as a life process, constituent to psychic transformation. The dark
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night is the process – as well as the time – in which spiritual transformation occurs in
the person, which in turn transforms the overall psyche of the person. When spiritual
transformation occurs in the psyche, the psyche itself is transformed in such a way that
a new psychic self-understanding and perspective, and resulting personality, has to be
synthesized from the integration of the previous consciousness and self into a newer,
more evolved spiritual consciousness, and personal sense of self. A new self is
synthesized by the newly transformed psyche and transformed spirit, so a more

conscious self develops to live more consciously, in terms of the conscious/unconscious

dialectic. This, in contemporary terms, is spiritual growth.
The framework of individuation views the human person as an individual
participating in a psychic transformation which begins in the first half of life with self-
realization, and completes in the second half with realization of self in relation to the
collective, outer world. Personal consciousness transforms in realization of the
unconscious, including archetypes, of which the archetype of the God-image is one.
The dark night describes the dynamics of the process of personal transformational
spiritual growth and all of the personal psychic and spiritual contents that are part of
that process. It also delineates that portion of individuation in which the self comes to
realization of, and relationality with, the archetype of the God-image. The dark night
provides a detailed understanding of how that realization of God occurs in the person,
and how God relationality progresses, which fleshes out the personal psychological
process of individuation with the personal dynamics of the process of spiritual
transformation.
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Step Three: Melding the Five Integrated Frames to Understand the

Psychological Theory of Spiritual Transformation

Having analyzed the theory in each of the frames as the experience of the
spiritual transformation in the person, we now can set about understanding the fully
fleshed out theory as unified by the confluence of the five frames in the experience of
the person. As we consider the confluence of the frames as they are experienced in the
person, we can see how the five-framed theory becomes one integrated, melded frame,
one fully integrated theory of spiritual transformation. We have seen in the psychology
of the person how spiritual transformation occurs in the experience of the person, and
thus psychologically understand the phenomenon of spiritual transformation in the
person.
The five frames described above as personal phenomena of spiritual
transformation in the life of the person, are now summarized as:

1. The Contemporary Psychological Revision of Personal Participation in Traditional

Historic Religious and Cultural Rites of Initiation and Passage
2. The Person Experiences Spiritual Transformation In Episodes, Phases, And
Passages, As Part Of Psychic Transformation
3. The Contemporary Individuating Person Chooses Participation in Historically
Religious, Cultural, and Social Processes
4. The Person Receives God’s Input as Spiritual Transformation in Psychic
Transformation of Individuation
5. The Psychic Life Course of the Person Transformed in Spiritual Passages Through
the Dark Nights
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We proceed to understand the integrated psychological/theological theory as a meld

of the five frames, which have their confluence in the experience of the human person.

Summarizing the Integrated and Melded Theory

We began this chapter by deciding on three steps to formulate our theory. In

Step One we established the basic structure of the theory as we integrated the
psychological framework and the spiritual theological flesh out of the framework to
yield five psychologically / theologically integrated frames. We then in Step Two
analyzed the integrated frames according to the primary criterion of the experience of
the person, and the secondary criterion of the interaction of the therapist with the
person. In the Third Step we melded the five frames into one theoretical framework as
a psychological theory of spiritual transformation that coheres based on the two criteria
of experience and intervention. Thus, our psychological theory of the experience of
spiritual transformation in the life of the person is summarized this way.

Traditional religious, cultural and social participation are revised in

contemporary times with the psychological understanding of the
individuation of the person. The person, having chosen personal
participation in religious, cultural, and social processes, experiences inner
personal spiritual transformation as part of personal psychic
transformation across the life course. By the psychological dialectical
process of unconscious psychic contents – including religious and spiritual
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contents – becoming conscious, the person receives God’s input as

spiritual transformation in the process of the psychic transformation of
individuation. The psychic life course of the person is transformed in
spiritual passages through the dark nights, accomplishing the spiritual
transformation of the person across the life cycle.

Some Concluding Statements

Culligan (1993 pp. 101-2) concludes that,

…Carmelite spirituality can assist contemporary psychology

continually to expand its vision of the human beyond its current models of
personality to include the human person’s infinite capacity for
transcendent truth, goodness and beauty – ultimately for God. From their
own experience in working with persons, spiritual directors can point to
the healing effects of prayer and meditation, of faith and hope particularly
for the healing of the unconscious, and the mysterious healing power of
the cross when freely accepted. Because of the person’s infinite capacity
for God, yet the continuous effects of sin upon human choice, Christian
spirituality can help psychotherapists appreciate that a human person is
not fully healed when emotional fixations on certain introjected objects
have been released. Much more still remains to restore a person to
wholeness which is ultimately achieved when the human person is
transformed in God…
My own experience firmly convinces me that such dialogue and
mutual collaboration as I have suggested here between Carmelite
spirituality and contemporary psychology, between spiritual directors and
psychotherapists, will assist both disciplines to pursue more effectively
their common goal, which Jesus Christ articulated as “the fullness of life”.
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Jung concludes his Terry Lectures, Psychology and Religion, at Yale in 1937 by

saying, “Nobody can know what the ultimate things are. We must, therefore, take them
as we experience them. And if such experience helps to make your life healthier, more
beautiful, more complete and more satisfactory to yourself and to those you love, you
may safely say: ‘This was the grace of God’” (1937 p. 114).
Finally, Blommestijn (2000 p. 241) summarizes transformation in St. John
of the Cross by saying, “Mystical theology is the growing contemplative consciousness
of the workings of divine Love in all layers of the human person…The growth of
disorientation in the desert of God’s Love is labeled in mystical literature as Dark
Night”. And he concludes his discussion of John’s dark night by saying,

In surrendering to contemplation we finally deliver ourselves up to

the passionate movement of the love which now alone guides and moves
our soul and makes us soar to our God on the road of solitude, without
knowing how and in what way. Having become free of all self-centered
selfhood in the intimacy of love, we no longer cling “to any particular
interior light of the understanding or to any exterior guide” [John CW p.
457]. Thus the journey of the night ends with the perspective which makes
life possible: God himself who takes us by the hand and leads us into the
paradise of his love. In this solitude all the words of the author cease, for
at this point nothing is more eloquent than silence.
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AFTERWORD: IMPLICATIONS, CONCLUSIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS

FROM THE THEORY FOR FUTURE THERAPEUTIC PRACTICE AND RESEARCH

Some Implications, Conclusions, and Speculations From the Theory

Psychic and spiritual transformation naturally and spontaneously occurs in the

person, the person chooses if, and if so how, that transformation will affect the life event
and life course. The implications here are that the person must become aware of the
dynamic of personal choice and become responsible for choices made and subsequent
behaviors. The person can change choices, and the therapist can communicate and
intervene so as to increase the person / client’s awareness of choice and the desirability
of choice management. When personal choice is the concentration rather than resulting
behavior or social participation, the person is enabled to change choices and change
behavior, and to accept responsibility for behaviors. In this way religion, spirituality,
and ethics can be reordered in the life of the person and active participation in psychic
and spiritual transformation can be increased.
In the individuation process the contemporary consciousness of the person for
personal choice, as a result of personal experience, influences how spiritual
transformation can and may occur in the person, constituent to psychic transformation.
Spiritual progress and experiences are produced in the person just as psychic progress
and experiences are produced, so it is in this way that the person can be conscious of,
and thereby choose to facilitate, spiritual transformation. In the dark night the person
comes to understand his/her true motives – what today we would psychologically call
unconscious motives – for religious behavior. These motives are part of John’s
understanding of memory in the unconscious of the person that can become conscious.
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Consciousness and motivation are two primary constituents of personal choice.

Increasing consciousness and understanding motivation are areas of therapeutic
concentration of endeavor to assist spiritual and psychic transformation. The
implication here is that as the person becomes more conscious of spiritual contents,
because the person has infinite capacity for those contents, the person becomes more
aware of his/her own infinite capacity for awareness and transformation of
consciousness. The person can, through his or her own awareness, increase their
capacity for functioning, and it is recommended the therapist can assist in this
awareness and sense of increase.
Contemplation assists the person in the process of awareness of spiritual
contents, and enables the person to put spiritual contents in conscious awareness and
experience, to become supplemental in relation to reason. Thus, as personal cognition
effects the psychic transformation of the person, contemplation as faith modality of the
person is part of the person’s cognitive process. Faith is affected in the person through
contemplation, it facilitates cognition of the transcendent by the person, and in the
person spiritual transformation occurs. As cognitive modes of awareness, contemplation
– as process – and contemplative awareness – as content – can be actively assisted
through increased cognition, by the self on the part of the person / client, and by the
therapist both in interaction and intervention. Teaching the process of contemplation is
recommended, on the part of any knowledgeable teacher, to heighten this cognition.
This is another set of choices possible on the part of the person, and other avenues for
therapeutic assistance. There is a major implication here that increasing cognition will
increase awareness, in turn increasing sense of capacity and potential for
transformation.
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The dark night is a process in the person through which one spiritual stage is
transformed into the subsequent stage, a process that evolves and telescopes from birth
to death in the totality of the spiritual transformation process, constituent to the life
course process of psychic transformation. It is concluded that any therapeutic
endeavor, which encourages psychic transformation, will encourage spiritual
transformation as well. Any psychic transformation of the person has the potential to
be a spiritual transformation. Spiritual transformation takes place in stages that are

distinct to the spiritually transformative process due to the nature of spiritual contents
and the spontaneous nature of their transformation.
Because the spiritual nature is part of the psychic nature, when spiritual
transformation occurs there is also potential for psychic transformation. The potential is
available in both influencing directions. This implies that a spiritual transformation can
affect contents of the psyche that are other than spiritual, such that a spiritual change
could influence a sensory or experiential change. And, a psychic transformation could
affect spiritual contents. The consideration here is not whether or not transformation will
affect spiritual or psychic contents, as we see that effect taking place interactively, but
that moving unconscious contents to consciousness is the main consideration. When the
therapist through techniques or the person through contemplation can increase
conscious awareness then it is concluded that the process of transformation can be
facilitated.
The spiritual journey of the person is experienced as a life’s journey, and the
dark night as event, episode, passage, or transformational epoch in the person’s life
course of spiritual transformation. The person experiences the dark night as an
experiential passage from one phase in the spiritual life to the next. As the person
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passes from one phase through a passage to another and another, the person
experiences a spiritually transformative life. As the person is experiencing
psychological individuation the dark night focuses spiritually transformative passages
and the sequence of passages results in the life course of spiritual transformation in the
person. Maturity is implied in events, and increased understanding of life events could
add to maturity of the person, whether done by the person or with therapist assistance.
Surveying of the life course to date and observing development of the personal self

over the course to date would serve to increase the sense and experience of maturity
of the self. It would be possible for the person to see psychic and spiritual transformation
over the course of life to date, as well as in the experience of life events and episodes.
Because of the reciprocal influence of spiritual to psychic transformation, it would
always be worthwhile – in the overall life course and in life events – to examine them
for spiritual elements and dynamics of spiritual transformation in addition to other
factors. The person, through recollection, introspection, and contemplation can
examine the self for spiritual elements, and it is recommended that the therapist
suggest and guide and highlight and clarify such dimensions to assist the realizations.
To remember that the potential of the spiritual dimension is ever-present will serve the
progress of the person and the effectiveness of the therapist for spiritual progress.
The individuating person is discovering his/her own psychic contents or
processes. Consciousness and choice both are important in the process. It is implied
that greater consciousness will lead to more deliberate and more appropriate choices
by the person, and an increased sense of responsibility and participation implies an
improved participation with improved results. The therapist can assist the person in
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his/her discovery and increased consciousness of his/her own psychic contents and
processes, and their concomitant spiritual contents and processes.
There is an implication here that, because spiritual contents and the person’s
capacity for them is infinite, an increase in discovery of spiritual contents and processes,
will lead to the person having a sense of that infinite capacity. Capacity for psychic
contents is finitely limited to the person’s psychic contents and processes as personal,
but capacity for spiritual contents as infinite indicates that the capacity of the person is

infinite. The person may experience an increase in sense of capability when spiritual
contents are processed from unconscious to conscious and the personal awareness of
spiritual contents is increased. In fact as the person discovers spiritual capacity the
person’s overall sense of capacity may increase with the awareness and experience of
the spiritual contents as infinite.
Therapeutically it may be of great value for the therapist to awaken the person’s
sense of capacity with spiritual dynamics. It is recommended that the therapist on an
ongoing basis remember in working with spiritual contents and dynamics that the
capacities of the person can transcend the finite and move into the infinite, so in a very
real sense the person’s capacities are in fact infinite. The person is then seen to have
infinite spiritual capacity beyond personal capacity, heightening the person’s sense of
self and therapist’s overall openness to awareness and capabilities of the person.
The first step in John’s theology of spiritual development is departure of the
person from the world; the second step is development along the road of faith; the third
step is arrival at union with God. This is a determination the person must make for
his/her self, and then proceed in relation to social institutions and to God. The dark
night we now understand as the individual’s break from society, personal recollection
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back into the self, and experience of spiritual transformation in the inner self, apart
from society. John explains the experience of the dark night as internal and personal,
away from society. A crucial conclusion here is that balance of self and society is
essential to the person. The person must have a balanced relation with himself, between
self-determination and self-yielding which is actually part of self-determination. This is
the personal predicate for balance between the self and society, between the external
sense world and the internal spiritual world. Even prior to beginning the journey of

spiritual development, in psychological terms balance between the person and society
is essential to the person. The balance shifts with maturity and experience, but balancing
the life of the person is crucial to the health of person, psychologically and in other
ways.
As the person begins the spiritual journey in the first phases of the dark night,
the kind of balance that is necessary changes to include the spiritual dimension in the
balance between the personal and social. The initial phases of the dark night are of the
person withdrawing from society and institutions, and the latter phases are of the person
withdrawing from self and uniting with God in the final step of spiritual transformation.
Most persons are in the initial phases of beginning to withdraw from the sensory outer
world, and many are in the middle phases of some degree of spiritual proficiency.
Psychologically the implication here is that in these two phases the person maintains
the self by maintaining a personal balance through the phases between self and world.
What the balance is shifts as the person progresses through the phases, but that there
needs to be a balance maintained is essential to the well being of the person,
particularly in times of spiritual transition as the dark night is defined.
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This is a critical juncture where it is highly recommended that therapists know

about the spiritual dimensions and processes of the person, even if only as a distinct
kind of psychic process. When the spiritual journey begins, because the person is
shifting psychic contents to spiritual contents and expanding in personal capacity from
finite to infinite, it must be taken seriously by the person and by the therapist that the
person is increasing in spiritual dimension in order to truly and fully understand the
transformation process in the person. The psychic transformation that is taking place is

in fact a spiritual transformation, just as Jungian individuation predicts and describes.

Individuation describes that it occurs, and the dark night describes how it occurs.
It is essential for the person to expand his/her self-understanding to include the
spiritual dimension. And, it is recommended as essential for the therapist to keep in
mind the understanding that the infinite spiritual dimension of the person is opening up
in consciousness and subsequently in social and religious and cultural manifestation,
interaction, and participation. The balance of the person is shifting, between self and
society, and between world and spirit. It must also be noted that, once the journey
begins, the balance will likely continue to shift throughout the initial and middle phases
of the journey. It is speculated here that in the latter phases of the spiritual journey
when the self is extinguished and the person is united with God, balance is extinguished.
The stages through which the person transforms are: the sense life, the beginner
in the active night of sense or purgative way, the passive night of sense precipitated by
recollection, the proficient in the illuminative way, the active and passive nights of spirit,
and the perfect in the unitive way. It is recommended that therapists become familiar
with this, John’s theory of spiritual developmental phases and with the technical,
experiential aspects of his dark night description. It is speculated here that in the
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therapeutic interaction the therapist will hear and feel the person as client experiencing
these phases and many of their experiential aspects. It will be helpful for the therapist
to be familiar with the phases, to be able to recognize them in the client experience
and to be more able to accompany and assist the client to move through them and to
understand them.
Recollection is pivotal in the spiritual process of the person, and as a psychic
process recognizable by the therapist. It is recommended that the therapist become

familiar with this process, in order to teach it to the client / person to facilitate client
balance and awareness and to encourage agency. It will also be helpful to understand
the process itself and its pivotal role in the well being of the transforming client to be
able to recognize it as the client employs it, or to recognize the need for this technique
at this pivotal place in the process of spiritual transformation.
Personal agency is something with which most therapists are familiar, and it is
here recommended that the spiritual dimensions of the developmental process be
factored into the therapist’s understanding of agency. It should be noted that the notions
of active and passive agency are psychically at work here, but there are additional
nuances of passive personal human agency as the active agency of God in the process
of spiritual transformation. The farther down the road the client is in their spiritual
journey the more important it will be for the therapist to be familiar with God’s agency
in the spiritual transformation process. As human agency decreases, God’s agency
increases, and this increase continues as the journey progresses.
The spiritual nature exists within the person, and the spiritual process occurs
within the person. The dark nights may have external facets which society may see, or
which may impact the person’s relationality, but the process of spiritual transformation
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happens to the person in the interior. The dark night happens in the interior of the
person undergoing spiritual transformation, so what can be an entirely life-altering
event for the person may be entirely unnoticed or misunderstood by society. The
external appearance of a person may or may not reflect the internal spiritual process,
and there are several important implications. A psychologist is trained to observe
and detect psychic process, but unless spiritual contents of the person’s psyche are
discussed outwardly with the therapist, the therapist may miss that interior dimension.

Most therapists are familiar with the potential for disparity between what the client
presents and what is actually going on inside of the client. Spiritual transformation is at
least as personal, intimate, elusive to evaluate and difficult to express as any other
psychic transformation, if not more so. It will be helpful and so it is recommended
that the therapist remember that the spiritual dimension is active along with the other
dimensions of the person, and is to be respected and honored and facilitated along
with the others. The implication here is that spiritual dynamics must be understood
along with other psychic dynamics of, and in the experience of, the client or person.
In the balance of the life of the person between the inner, personal self and the
outer, social participation, it is recommended that the therapist remember the
distinction between spirituality and religion for therapeutic purposes. Spirituality we
consider to be the inner, personal process of individual spirit internal to the person, and
religion we consider to be outer, social expression of collective religious experience.
As spiritual growth and transformation occurs in the person the balance can shift
between inner spiritual process and outward religious participation. Each person’s
choice of that balance shifts as his/her spiritual journey progresses, and each person
chooses their ways of participating in both practices. It is helpful for the person to
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remember this as they mature on their spiritual journey, which is unique to each
individual person. And, it is helpful for the therapist to understand that the client or
person’s balance of participation is shifting as they progress.
This is not – as some religiously based pastoral care givers have advocated –
an opportunity for religious evangelism or conversion, which would be an unethical
abuse of client vulnerability. This is a therapeutic responsibility to facilitate healing and
developmental process in the client, according to their choices and what is appropriate

for them, as in any other life area of clients. It is highly recommended here that, as
a psychotherapist best serves the client with an eclectic view of therapeutic technique
and selecting that technique which best fits the client’s current needs, a religious
pastoral counselor best serves the counselee with a God-centered but spiritually eclectic
therapeutic ministerial approach. The spiritual well being of the person / client /
counselee is of foremost importance here, which demands eclectic approach and
appropriate therapeutic selectivity of application of technique. When in doubt, the most
highly recommended technique in all therapeutic interactions is active listening32, so
that clarity comes from the client and is received by the therapist.
Very important is the interior, private, intimate nature of the relationship of the
individual soul to Spirit, that is, of the person to God. This is why for John this
relationship is developed inwardly, in the interior, through recollection and then in
contemplation of God, the Beloved, and the love of the person for God increases
inwardly through the person’s participation in God and spiritual transformation of the

32
For more on this technique the reader is referred to the client-centered therapy of psychologist
Carl Rogers, and to the experiential therapy of Eugene Gendlin. Any treatise on the value and
process of therapeutic listening will assist enormously in accomplishing this essential therapeutic
task.
 237

person culminates in union with God through love. Recollection and contemplation can
be thought of as Western Christian ways of Eastern meditation. When we remember
this interiority we can give ourselves more opportunity to foster our interior spiritual
experiences, as well as have understanding, respect, and compassion and possible
companionship for others as having their own interior spiritual experiences. It is
recommended that the therapist must be aware of these interior dynamics, remember
that they are interior, and understand that spiritual transformation is a fundamental part

of these dynamics.
The field of psychology, since its inception, has been concerned with the human
unconscious, and the relationship of the unconscious to the conscious mind.
Psychologists are very familiar with this conceptually, and those who would like to know
more could employ a recommendation here to more deeply investigate analytical
psychology and depth psychology for their understandings of the conscious /
unconscious relation. The primary concern here is for pastoral counselors who are not
trained in the fundamentals of either psychology. Such counselors have expertise in
religion, spirituality, and pastoral care, which far surpass psychologists and enables
spiritual counseling in a way that psychologists are not trained. When spiritual
transformation is seen as a psychic process, however, it is necessary to understand the
critical psychological dimension of spiritual understandings occurring as spiritual
psychic contents move from the unconscious to the conscious. It is this psychic process
of consciousness that enables the person to become more spiritually aware, to develop
more in personal relation to God, and to understand religious and spiritual principles.
It is highly recommended that pastoral counselors familiarize themselves with the
basic understandings of this psychological process of awareness, in order to
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understand counselees in their efforts for increased awareness of the spiritual contents
of the psyche.

Two Primary Concluding Implications

This dissertation, through comparative study, brings into analysis Jung's

psychological views of spiritual transformation across the life cycle, and St. John's

theological views of spiritual transformation in the lived experience of persons. As a

study in integrated psychological and theological understanding of, and approach to,
human spiritual transformation, it is hoped that this dissertation will inform and evolve
both psychotherapeutic and pastoral endeavor. It is also hoped that this will serve as
a springboard for future development in the area of understanding and therapeutically
addressing human spiritual transformation, growth, and well-being.
This dissertation and its findings are significant in two primary ways. First, it
provides a pivot point for traditional psychology which focuses on pathology and
intervention, to transform into a contemporary psychology which regards the whole
person as transforming out of undeveloped, unconscious, and/or pathological state,
understands the transformative process as critical to movement from pathology to
positive development, and proceeds to understand developmental passages and the
phenomenology of growth, healing, and evolving well being. Second, the dissertation
adds understanding of the spiritual dimension of the person into the traditional
understanding of the person as mind, body, and emotions. With spirituality at the core
of the person it is seen to be prior to, and therefore influencing of, the mind, body, and
emotions. This dissertation sets forth a psychological understanding of the spiritual
 239

dimension of the person, and its role in transformation of suffering and pathology into
healing, growth, evolution and well-being, as well as psychospiritual understandings of
the passages of that transformation to inform psychology as a whole and the theory
and practice of psychotherapy and pastoral care and counseling.

Possibilities For Future Work

Subsequent to this dissertation, future research can be done based on the theory
of the integrated understanding of spiritual transformation provided by the dissertation.
The theory can then be reformulated and retested as the therapeutic approach is
developed in practice.
Based on the dissertation theory I propose the following as one particular
research. The nature of the research is to apply theoretical constructs of spiritual
transformation at the two tiers of life cycle and life episode in research with subjects.
The theory suggests that there are patterns, signals, and stages in the process of spiritual
transformation at both tiers of investigation. The purpose of the research is to elicit,
identify, and assess the patterns, signals, and stages of intrapsychic and intrapersonal
psychospiritual transformation to formulate psychotherapeutic approach to processing
spiritual contents, and to develop a cohesive model of the inner psychic landscape of
spirituality and its processes.
The research method contains three major components: oral history interviews to
elicit intrapersonal data, empirical observation during interviews to observe
extrapersonal data, and documentation for qualitative and quantitative analyses of
data. It is believed that patterns, signals and stages of transformation will emerge, from
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which a model of the process of spiritual transformation can be generated at each of

the two tiers of study. It is believed that comprehensives models of psychospiritual
transformation across the life cycle and of episodic transformation will emerge,
increasing our ability to develop appropriate psychotherapeutic approach to the
process of intrapersonal, intrapsychic spiritual transformation. In this one particular
research I propose to investigate the inner landscape of the person in the
psychospiritual transformation process.

Understanding the process of spiritual transformation yielded by the dissertation,

and understanding of the inner landscape of the person yielded by this proposed
research, can enable further research. The following are possible areas for further
research, all of which have enormous potential for contribution to both psychological
and pastoral endeavors, and to understanding and facilitating the transition from
pathology and spiritual crisis to healing, growth, and development. Theories for
research and models for testing can be created for each of these areas of research.

• Elucidation of spiritual dynamics and phenomenology, development of

therapeutic approach to spirituality in psychology and psychotherapy
• Addition of the spiritual superconscious to the personal conscious/unconscious
of Freud, the collective unconscious of Jung, and Assagioli’s lower, middle and
higher consciousness in depth psychology to expand understanding of human
consciousness
• Establishment of a history of spirituality in depth psychology, beginning in
psychiatry prior to Freud, and religious and spiritual departures from Freud by
Jung, Assagioli, et al
• Development of transpersonal psychotherapeutic theory and therapy, and its use
with the mentally ill, retarded and gifted, and across cultures
 241

• Expansion of understandings of the spiritual dimensions of humanistic, existential,

transpersonal, and positive psychologies, such as in Maslow’s self-actualization
and Rogerian client-centered therapy
• Increase psychological understandings of spiritual phenomenology in human
growth and evolution and development of existential theology
• Elucidate the individual personal will and its role in spirituality, decision-making,
and behavior, at individual and collective levels
• Extrapolation from the individual to the collective, including international and
cultural relations through peace psychology, non-governmental organizations,
inter-religious dialogical and relational experiences and understandings; use of
the individual will and its impact in institutional collective decision-making
• Restorative justice and penal reform using psychological techniques and spiritual
principles including transformative processes of the spirit, will, heart and mind,
and principles of restitution and forgiveness

Work in all of these areas can yield findings significant to the development of the
fields of psychology, theology, and religion, for the individual person, and for
collective humanity.
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ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Assagioli, Roberto A. 1965. Psychosynthesis. 1976. New York: Penguin Books.

Chapter Four footnote reference.

Augsburger, David W. 1986. Pastoral Counseling Across Cultures. Philadelphia PA:

Westminster Press. Chapter Four footnote reference.

Babbie, Earl R. 1979. The Practice of Social Research. Second edition. Belmont CA:
Wadsworth Publishing Company, Inc. A discussion of social scientific inquiry:
modes and structure of inquiry, models of observation, and analysis of data.

Blommestijn, Hem. The Dark Night in John of the Cross. The Transformational Process.
Studies in Spirituality. October 2000. Louvain, Belgium: Peeters Publishers. Self-
described, this new journal is “to publish scientific and specialist articles on
spirituality and mysticism, and thus promote spirituality as a science... [as] a
multidisciplinary approach” covering theory, phenomenology, and periods and
figures.

Corbett, Lionel. 1996. The Religious Function of the Psyche. London and New York:
Routledge. Description of a “new psychological dispensation” which includes the
transpersonal, numinous, mythic, religious, contemplative and spiritual practice
considered in a contemplative psychology.
 243

Culligan, Kevin G. 1979. Toward a Model of Spiritual Direction Based on the Writings

of Saint John of the Cross and Carl Rogers: An Exploratory Study. Doctoral
dissertation, Boston University. Ann Arbor MI: Proquest Information and
Learning. A synthesis of Rogerian psychotherapeutic theory and process, and
the theory of spiritual direction presented in St. John's works, to create a new
model of spiritual direction as informed by psychotherapy.
Author Vitae
Kevin Gerald Culligan, O.C.D. [Order of Carmelites Discalced], a native
of Chicago, was raised in California. He entered the Discalced Carmelites in
1955 and was ordained to the priesthood in Washington, D.C. in 1963. A
licensed psychologist, he obtained his M.S. in clinical psychology from
Marquette University and his PhD in psychology of religion from Boston
University. He has taught psychology and spiritual direction in universities and
seminaries. He is widely published in books and journals, as well as sitting on
editorial and advisory boards. He writes, lectures, conducts workshops and
retreats in Carmelite spirituality, and offers individual spiritual guidance for
priests, religious and laity.

_____. 1982. Toward a Contemporary Model of Spiritual Direction: A Comparative

Study of St. John of the Cross and Carl Rogers. Carmelite Studies: Contemporary
Psychology and Carmel. Development of a systematic method for comparing
traditional spiritual direction with contemporary psychotherapy.

_____. 1993. John of the Cross and Modern Psychology: A Brief Journey into the
Unconscious. A Fresh Approach to St. John of the Cross. Edited by John
McGowan. Kildare, Ireland: St. Paul’s. A collection of articles on contemporary
 244

facets of John, including John the man, human development, relationships, the
unconscious, spiritual discernment, pain, and daily life.

D'Souza, Rudolf V. 1996. The Bhagavadgita and St. John of the Cross: A Comparative
Study of the Dynamism of Spiritual Growth in the Process of God-Realisation.
Rome, Italy: Gregorian University Press. Post-Vatican II effort to promote
interreligious dialogue, comparing the process of spiritual dynamism or God-
realization in Hindu and Christian texts to form a more whole concept.
Author Vitae
Rudolf V. D’Souza, born in 1960 at Madanthyar (Karnataka,
India), joined the Discalced Carmelites and was ordained priest in 1987,
after his philosophical studies in Kerala University and ecclesiastical
studies in St. Joseph’s Seminary, Mangalore. He has a Master’s degree
in Sociology from the University of Karnataka, a diploma from the Centro
Internacional Teresiano-Sanjuanista (Avila, Spain), the Licentiate in
Spirituality from the Pontifical Institute of Spirituality, Teresianum (Rome),
and the Doctorate in Spiritual Theology from the Pontifical Gregorian
University (Rome) summa cum laude.

Doohan, Leonard. 1995. The Contemporary Challenge of John of the Cross: An

Introduction to His Life and Teaching. Washington DC: ICS Publications, Institute
of Carmelite Studies. Summary of John’s life and work, with commentary
contemporizing John’s spiritual schema.

Edinger, Edward F. 1972. Ego and Archetype: Individuation and the Religious Function
of the Psyche. 1992. Boston: Shambhala. Discussion of Jung's theory of
individuation, its process and aims in Edinger’s terms.
 245

Edinger, Edward F. 2002. Science of the Soul: A Jungian Perspective, edited by Daryl
Sharp and J. G. Sparks. Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Inner City Books. A
collection of essays by Edinger on Jung.

Emmons, Robert A. 1999. The Psychology of Ultimate Concerns; Motivation and

Spirituality in Personality. New York NY: Guilford Press. A discussion of the role
of motivation and the influence of spiritual and religious experience on the
psychological formation of personality.

Gendlin, Eugene. T. 1996. Focusing-Oriented Psychotherapy: A Manual of the

Experiential Method. New York NY: Guilford Press. A description of a model of
experiential psychotherapy anchored in the focusing technique.

God Speaks in the Night: The Life, Times, and Teaching of St. John of the Cross. 2000.
Washington DC: ICS Publications. Developed by Italian Carmelites, brings
together contemporary research on St. John.

Gorsuch, Richard L. 2002. Integrating Psychology and Spirituality? Westport CT:

Praeger. Discusses the nature of integration, interdisciplinary relationships, and
problem solving.

Harvey, Van A. 1964. A Handbook of Theological Terms. New York: Collier Books,
Macmillan Publishing Company. Harvey says, “My aim has not been to provide
 246

definitions of obscure theological terms, but to indicate how such terms, ancient
and modern, have been variously used in differing circumstances and what is at
issue in these various uses. It is a wordbook, not a dictionary…[of] terms
employed in systematic and philosophical theology” (p. 6).

Hill, Peter C. Spiritual Transformation: Forming the Habitual Center of Personal Energy.
Psychology of Religion Newsletter of American Psychological Association

Division 36. Vol. 26, No. 4. Fall 2001. A postulation of spirituality as

transformational to the center of personality as root of habitual thinking and
behavior.

International Dictionary of Psychology. 1996. Edited by Sutherland.

Jacobi, Jolande. 1973. The Psychology of C. G. Jung, foreword by C. G. Jung. New

Haven, CT: Yale University Press. A concise summary of primary tenets of Jung's
thoughts, authorized by Jung. Includes "Analytical Psychology and Religion".

_____1965. Way of Individuation, translated by R. F. C. Hull. 1967. New York:

Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc. Comprehensive presentation of Jung's theory of
individuation.

_____1976. Masks of the Soul, translated by Ean Begg. Grand Rapids MI: William B.
Eerdmans Publishing Co. Jungian views of the soul.
 247

John of the Cross, Saint. 1578-1591. Collected Works. Translated by Kavanaugh, K.,

OCD, and Rodriguez, 0., OCD. Introduction by Kavanaugh. Revised edition.

1991. Washington D. C.: ICS (Institute of Carmelite Studies) Publications.
Includes: The Ascent of Mount Carmel; The Dark Night, The Spiritual Canticle,
The Living Flame of Love. American English translation of the extant corpus of
the Spanish mystical theologian with extensive commentary and glossary.

_____1584-8. Dark Night of the Soul. Translated, edited, introduced by E. Allison

Peers. 1990. New York: Doubleday. British English translation of St. John’s The
Dark Night.

Jung, C. G. Basic Writings of C. G. Jung. Selected, edited, and introduced by Violet

S. de Laszlo. 1959. Translated by R. C. F. Hull. 1990. Princeton NJ: Princeton
University Press. Includes writings from Vols. 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 16, and
17 of his Collected Works, organized into four parts: psyche, therapy, religious
function, and human development.

_____1939. The Meaning of Individuation. Integration of the Personality. Translated

by Stanley Dell. New York: Farrar & Rinehart, Inc. This was the original form of
this paper, is now part of Jung CW Vol. 9i and titled “Consciousness,
Unconscious, and Individuation”. It is a discussion of the relationship of the
conscious to the unconscious in individuation as it shifts meaning for the totality
of personality.
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_____ 1961. Memories, Dreams, Reflections. Recorded and edited by Aniela Jaffé.

Translated by Richard and Clara Winston. Revised edition. 1989. New York NY:
Vintage Books (Random House, Inc.). Jung’s autobiography.

_____ 1933. Modern Man in Search of a Soul. Translated by W. S. Dell and Cary F.
Baynes. Reprint. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. A small, select collection
of some of Jung's lectures, including "The Spiritual Problem of Modern Man" and
"Psychotherapists and the Clergy".

_____1960. On the Nature of the Psyche. Translated by R. F. C. Hull. Princeton

University Press. In CW Volume 8, discusses the conscious, unconscious, instinct,
will, behavior and archetypes.

_____The Portable Jung. Translated by R. F. C. Hull. Edited and introduction by Joseph

Campbell. New York: Penguin Books. 1971. Includes stages, psychic structure,
phenomenology of self, ego, transcendent function.

_____1938. Psychology and Religion. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. "The
psychologist, in as much as he assumes a scientific attitude, has to disregard the
claim of every creed to be the unique and eternal truth. He must keep his eye on
the human side of the religious problem, in that he is concerned with the original
religious experience quite apart from what the creeds have made of it" (p. 7).
Also known as The Terry Lectures, and is in CW Vol. 11.
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_____1984. Psychology and Western Religion. Translated by R. F. C. Hull. Princeton

University Press. Includes "Psychoanalysis and the Cure of Souls" (1928) and
"Jung and Religious Belief", Jung's responses to clergy questions (1956-8). The
Western Religion first half of CW Vol. 11, the last half being Eastern Religion.

Oxford English Dictionary (Concise). 1999. Tenth edition. Edited by J. Pearsall. New
York: Oxford University Press.

Oxford Reference Online 2000. Oxford University Press, Inc. Payne, Steven. 1990. St.
John of the Cross and the Cognitive Value of Mysticism: An Analysis of
Sanjuanist Teaching and its Philosophical Implications for Contemporary
Discussions of Mystical Experience. Dordrecht, the Netherlands: Kluwer
Academic Publishers. A contemporary discussion of St. John of the Cross’
mystical theology in terms of today’s psychological studies of cognition and
cognitive processes.

Rayburn, Carole A. Theobiology, Spirituality, Religiousness, and the Wizard of Oz.

Psychology of Religion Newsletter of American Psychological Association
Division 36. Vol. 26, No. 1. Winter 2001. Reports quantitative research results
of religiosity measures. Operational definitions of spirituality and religiousness.

Ruether, Rosemary Radford. 1992. Gaia & God: An Ecofeminist Theology of Earth
Healing. HarperSanFrancisco. A practical theological and ecofeminist
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examination of ecojustice and ecological healing as both theological and

“psychic-spiritual process”.

Sharp, Daryl. 1991. C. G. Jung Lexicon: A Primer of Terms & Concepts. Toronto,
Canada: Inner City Books. Extensive definitions of Jungian terms according to
Sharp and in Jungian terms.

Stein, M. 1998. Jung's Map of the Soul: An Introduction. Chicago IL: Open Court
Publishing Company. Stein's "distillation of nearly thirty years of studying Jung's
map of the soul" (p. 2).

Stevens, Anthony. 1990. On Jung. London: Penguin Books.

Von Franz, Maria-Louise. 1980. Projection and Recollection in Jungian Psychology:

Reflections of the Soul. Trans. W. H. Kennedy. Peru, Illinois: Open Court Press.
Von Franz analyzes Jung’s concept of what Freud originally termed
“projection”.

Wojtyla, Karol. 1948. On the Nature of Faith According to Saint John of the Cross.
Translated by Jordan Aumann, O.P. 1981. San Francisco: Ignatius Press. A
discussion of the phenomenology of faith in the writings of St. John. Wojtyla,
now Pope John Paul II, completed and defended this - his first - doctoral thesis at
Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas, Rome.
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Wulff, David M. 1997. Psychology of Religion: Classic & Contemporary. Second

edition. New York: Wiley & Sons, Inc. Most comprehensive textbook to date of
religion as the object of psychological analysis.

Yogananda, Paramahansa. 1946. Autobiography of a Yogi. Twelfth edition. 1994. Los

Angeles CA: Self-Realization Fellowship.