To Darkness . . .

November 5–9, 2025
Hotel Santa Fe
Santa Fe, New Mexico

For the darkness has its own peculiar intellect and its own logic, which should be taken very seriously. Only the ‘light which the darkness comprehendeth not’ can illuminate the darkness. Everything that the darkness thinks, grasps, and comprehends by itself is dark; therefore it is illuminated only by what, to it, is unexpected, unwanted, and incomprehensible.

— C.G. Jung, Mysterium Coniuntionis par. 345

We live in times of profound uncertainty and increasing chaos. Many feel that darkness is descending on our present civilization. Alchemically speaking, darkness can represent the first phase of transformation—the nigredo—potentially marking the beginning of a magnum opus or great work. It is a phase when “things fall apart; the centre cannot hold” (W. B. Yeats, “The Second Coming”).

Alchemy, according to C.G. Jung, can be understood as an inner psychological process projected onto outer situations. Actively engaging with darkness—unconsciousness, otherness, the shadow—transforms us, and in so doing, we transform the world. How can we meet and work with the mad, chaotic, and destructive parts of life? Existing at the edge of what is already known, such nigredo experiences represent boundary phenomena, intruding upon and disrupting any sense of containment. Yet, these states of unraveling belong to the human condition (hence, familiar to all of us) and are crucial to change and regeneration (cf. N. Schwartz-Salant, The Mystery of Human Relationship p. 37).

The way forward includes sacred work. It is a process requiring curiosity about and engagement with the dark situations at hand. Only then can something illuminating and “incomprehensible” to darkness emerge.