Exploration of Darkness, Part I

Note: This is the first in a series of posts about darkness. I have reached some conclusions about my life and the role darkness will play in the future. Frankly, the conclusions and their implications scare me. I am going to make an effort anyway. I feel this exploration is important.

Lately, I have been asking what is darkness? No one gave me a satisfactory answer. It became apparent that the term meant whatever scared someone.  Yet, within the Golden Dawn style officer installment ceremony there is a clue. The hierophant (the expounder of the mysteries/light) says to the newly incoming hiereus (the limitation of the light/darkness), “The divine darkness is the same the as the divine light.” How are they the same? They both reveal divinity.

Let’s examine how this is explained in the Golden Dawn Zelator Ritual.

“The Great Angel Samael answered and said, “I am the Prince of Darkness and of Night. The foolish and rebellious gaze upon the face of the created world and find therein nothing but terror and obscurity. It is to them the terror of darkness, and they are as drunken men stumbling in the Darkness….”

A short time later we hear this, "The Great Angel Metatron answered and said: 'I am the Angel of the Presence Divine. The wise gaze upon the created world and behold there the dazzling image of the Creator. Not yet can thine eyes bear that dazzling Image.'

The light reveals creation. The darkness obscures it and thus creates terror. In short, those things that scare us do so because they appear to separate us from union with That Which Creates. Therefore, it is important to not only to seek the light but to find the dazzling image of the creator through the obscuring darkness. Another name for darkness is ‘that which hides G-d’ or ‘that which appears to destroy unity with G-d’.

For me the biggest thing which hides my inner divinity is my frustration/anger. When I act this way, I feel removed from all the work that I have done and all the results that I have achieved.

The trick for me is to explore my frustration/anger at the deepest levels. I have done this once before. Hecate took me to the Tartarus twice. The first time showed me that all I had to do to walk away from there was to give up everything that took me to that place. She offered me a doorway of light to walk through. I just could not do it. The second time, She showed me myself locked in a deeper level. That part of me lives in a deep blind rage unlike anything you’ve ever seen on this earth, at least I hope you’ve never seen that.

This winter, I will ask Her to take me back. I want to deal with that poor fellow trapped in the depths. I want to rescue him. This will be a journey to find the dazzling image of the creator within my own dark self.

This is only one way to look at the darkness. Another way is to see it as a part of creation itself. That will be covered in my next post.