DarkHorse Ministries

Bitten by the HOLY Bug: True Fascination

As I continued my personal study of the works of the Swiss psychiatrist C.G. Jung, I began to recognize that I was most certainly being drawn by some sort of invisible force that I did not and could not understand. I slowly began to realize that I had in some way become possessed by something strange and wonderful. Indeed, I believe that I could not have stopped my curiosity even if I had wanted to. This spiritual drive or energy seemed to have a mysterious and even magical quality about it. Rudolf Otto spoke of this positive pole of numinous energy, or 'mysterium fascinosum' in his magnum opus, "The Experience of the Holy."

Others would often ask me why I read so much. I would share with them that "I had been bitten by the bug" and that once the fascination bug bit you, there was no turning back. This fascination was a natural by-product of the continuing psychological work — the alchemical opus — that I was doing and allowing to be done on myself. This strange attraction issues from the same unconscious source that Jung warned his readers to have the utmost care and respect for. He repeatedly throughout his works cautions against treating the archetypal energies or sub-personalities of the unconscious with anything but the utmost reverence and respect.

He compares the ego to a tiny cork that must remain afloat on the vast ocean of the unconscious. In others words, the seeker must remain consciously aware and be humble when working with the unconscious, lest the tremendous numinous energies attached to unconscious fantasies completely swamp his conscious self even to the point of creating a psychotic break.

This is in fact the case with schizophrenia and some other mental disorders, the ego was simply never strong enough or no longer strong enough to properly contain the powerful attractive energies of unconscious fantasies. The result is that the dark unconscious world of largely mythological characters and themes comes to dominate the conscious psyche.

Later on, I began to seriously study the Traditionalist school of ancient metaphysics. I found an incredible challenge in the magnificent works of Frithjof Schuon, (d. 1998) who was hailed by Huston Smith as one of the greatest living exponents of the Perennial Philosophy. After approximately five years of occasionally studying Schuon's writings, I could literally feel the pull of gnosis in my forehead and I then knew in the center of my being that much of Schuon's writings accurately described Absolute Truth or Reality.