In retrospect, most of us would be prepared to confess that in our childhood we suffered much from the fear of darkness. Ah, that blessed incandescent bulb that at the turn of a switch dispelled the demons of darkness! No guardian angel ever took so reliable an incarnate form. In the child’s mind, what a simple metamorphosis from fear to trust! Nor does the man or woman ever altogether outgrow the child in this awesome and mythic response. Is it the unconscious memory of the darkness of the womb? Pressed further back in the body’s mysterious recall, is it the nocturnal fear of intruders at the entrance of the cave-dwelling before the epoch-making invention of fire? Further still, does it echo the first cell’s instinctive recoil from the darkness of the molecular substance from which it sprang, or perhaps even matter’s mindless memory of the darkness on the face of the deep while chaos yet prevailed?
John Yungblut's interest in depth psychology was first aroused as a result of a nervous breakdown during his sophomore year in college. In quest of self-understanding he turned to the study of Freud and later of C. G. Jung. For many years engaged in counseling along Jungian lines, he has found a confirmation in Jung, not only of religious experience but of the mystical dimension therein, that has been important to him in working out his own personal synthesis of psychology and mysticism. This essay represents a recent outgrowth of this process, and was presented March 19, 1976, at Ben Lomond, California, at the first Conference on Psychology and Religion held by Friends on the West Coast.