Quakers and the Inner Dark
by Jo Farrow, Britain Yearly Meeting, Gifts and Discoveries,
Phase 2A, Unit 2, Background Paper 1

. . . We must admit, firstly, that there is all too much evidence to suggest that human nature is flawed by violence and aggression and that these are fueled by such emotions as greed, vanity, pride, envy and fear... But does the fact that we so often behave badly mean that we have built-in biological characteristics of violence and destructiveness? . . .

I should like to try and identify some of the roots of violence. These must be eradicated if peace is more widely to prevail. Not only are such responses completely inadequate ways of behaving towards other human beings, but the more automatic or unconscious, the more likely to be based on old hurts and confusions and so to be irrational or reactively violent. . . . These memory traces of fear, rejection, humiliation, loneliness and other painful feelings not only warp our human relations but evoke actions that range from being inappropriate or self-damaging to being in varying degrees destructive, which of course further distorts our relations.

The greed and selfishness that are so sadly prevalent and taint so much of human existence develop, at least in part, from the need to compensate for what is dimly felt to be wrong with us. This is a spiritual want, but we seldom see it like this-if we did, everything would be different. As it is, the more uneasy we feel, the more, in our anxiety, do we become automatic and so further estranged from our true nature. The more machine-like our behavior, the more we are torn by largely unconscious conflicts, the more we experience a feeling of worthlessness, a flawed identity-and the more desperate our efforts to make up for these lacks. . . . Such are the roots of violence in ourselves and our society. I firmly deny that they are intrinsic to our nature, but they are deep and all pervasive. . . . We must learn to love ourselves. Not to pamper, but also not to berate or belittle-that would be disparaging God's handiwork. Indeed to love ourselves rightly is the precondition of loving others. . . . We have somehow forgotten who we are; and this is the source of all our errors."

- Adam Curle, "True Justice." Swarthmore Lecture, 1981

Friends have often been uneasy about any undue emphasis on sin or evil and in some respects their reticence is easy to understand. Early Friends were in revolt against thirteen hundred years of Augustine theology with its obsessional preoccupation with original sin, the depravity of humanity, Fall and Atonement, the Wrath of God and the eternal damnation of a largely sinful human race. The darkness of this kind of theology was shot through with some shafts of grace and glory but in this life it held out little hope of healing the wounds in the human heart. It was the kind of theology to drive sensitive people to despair and it brought George Fox to the point of longing for death.

His discovery that there is something more profound in the human heart than a propensity for evil, an inward light, a capacity for responding to the spirit of truth and life, a God within rather than a devil, marks the beginning of the Quaker movement. There were of course many more sensitive seekers who were also in revolt against a theology of despair and were daring to trust their own experience. They were waiting for a new movement of the spirit which would lead them into a world of hope and promise. We can understand that the invitation to "walk cheerfully over the world, answering that of God in everyone" was a liberation from the process of sitting in miserable contemplation of your own depravity, or that of others.

Without being aware of it, Friends had joined themselves to the pre-Augustinian tradition of Creation-centered spirituality, in which the experience of original blessing, rather than original sin, was the dominant theme. They were in the business of reclaiming part of a much older Judaeo-Christian tradition in which creation, including human beings, is seen as good and full of blessing. Early Quaker spirituality, though it never entirely lost some of the darker undertones of Puritan piety, was a joyful re-discovery of the Hebrew affirmation of life, its zestful relish of the glory of the created world and the role of human beings as co-creators with God in caring for the earth and making it a just and peaceable place.

Yet there is no doubt that early Friends were also deeply aware of the sickness of their own society, and the darkness of it, nor that they experienced institutional Christianity as having added to that darkness and oppression. Their experience of walking in the light of a transformed world in which creation seemed fresh and new to them did not blind them to the reality of evil, but rather gave them a sharper sense of the darkness in which so many still lived.

Nor did early Friends trivialize sin or salvation by imagining that their individual healing was more important than the healing of society or nations. They had rejected the idea of cheap grace, the notion that an individual could buy God's favor with pious practice or ritual observances. They had reclaimed the territory of prophetic judgment on the injustice of social structures and the spoiling of creation. They knew that they had to work out their new experience of being "alive in a new world" in a society in which human beings exploited one another and oppressed those who were poor and without power. Their awareness of living in the light threw into even sharper relief the darkness within, and also the dark powers at work in the age in which they lived. Being open to the spirit involved them in a process of sensitization to all that was basically wrong with the social structure and institutions of their time, and made them even more keenly aware of the difference between truth and falsehood, what was good and holy and what was otherwise. It was said of George Fox, to whom "all creation gave a new smell," so that he felt himself walking in the paradise of God, that he had an equally keen sense of smell where evil was concerned.

That heightened sensitivity was not restricted to awareness of the darkness in others. It had begun with his own experience of discovering the darkness within himself. "The natures of dogs, swine, vipers, of Sodom and Egypt, Pharaoh and Caine, Ishmael, Esau etc. The natures of these I saw within. And I cried to the Lord 'Why should I be thus, seeing I was never addicted to commit these evils?' And the Lord answered that it was needful that I should have a sense of all conditions, how else should I speak to all conditions; and in this I saw also that there was an ocean of darkness and death, but an infinite ocean of light and love, which flowed over the ocean of darkness." It was an intuition of profound importance at a time when many of his contemporaries projected the blame for human evil on dark forces beyond their control, extra-terrestrials, demons and satanic messengers. Indeed Fox himself was never able to work through all the implications of his moment of insight. He continued to believe in witches and allowed the established church to stand as a personification of demonic darkness in a way that would strike us today as distinctly paranoid.

The themes of darkness and light, truth and falsehood, light and death, occupy a large proportion of Fox's writing. Today, however, we are ill at ease with vocabulary which refers so explicitly to sin and evil or the darker side of human nature. That may be because we are very sharply aware of corporate insanity and the disorders in society and international affairs. Our awareness of evil on a cosmic scale has the effect of increasing our own sense of anxiety and powerlessness, but not necessarily of enabling us to be aware of our own participation in what is so obviously evil.

We find it easier to talk of neurosis and personality disorders and transmute our unease about our own darkness into a more paralyzing fear about the things which lie hidden in our unconscious life. But we are rather more reticent about identifying in ourselves, or others, the attitudes and behaviors that are life-denying and destructive.

Perhaps we are wise to be more reticent about risking the truth where others are concerned. We may recall the words of Jesus to the religious leaders of his day that those who are over-zealous to spot the dust in the eyes of others had better be sure that there is not a whole plank of wood obstructing their own vision. "Judge not that you are not judged" seems like good advice to those who are anxious to set the world straight by starting on the behavior of others. It is equally good advice to ourselves when we discover our own unfinished humanity in what appears to be its darker aspects. Yet at a time when the issues of life and death have such appalling implications it seems strange that Friends have little to say about evil or the inner darkness in the human heart. Christian Faith and Practice (Britain Yearly Meeting) contains 29 references to the Inward Light and only 7 which refer to darkness and dryness. There are no references at all to either Evil or Good. In a century which has known the holocaust and Hiroshima these are strange omissions and may compel us to ask ourselves some difficult questions.

1. Have Friends, with their emphasis on the Inward Light, failed to wrestle adequately with its opposite?

2. In our insistence on a belief about "that of God in everyone" have we taken sufficient account of the human capacity for evil or the demons by which we may be driven?

3. In writing extensively about the experience of walking and waiting in the light have we ignored a necessary examination of the darker routes that the human spirit may travel? Do we need to spend more time in understanding the psychology of evil?

4. In our concern to be architects of a peaceable Kingdom/Queendom, have we properly assessed the strength of the opposition or understood the roots of violence in ourselves which might wreck that vision before we could set one foot within the Promised Land?

5. In reclaiming a place in the tradition of Creation-centered spirituality and endeavoring to see the whole of life as sacramental, have we failed to take seriously the unholy and horrifying aspects of our world?

6. Have we been open to the light which twentieth century psychologists have shed on the problem of human evil and our inner darkness?

We do not have to be in sympathy with the traditional Atonement/Fall theologies of institutional Christianity, or at ease with its vocabulary, to be aware of what seems like a dark perversity or flaw at the center of human existence. Eric Fromm, a wise and humane explorer of the territory of the human psyche, was continually puzzled by our fear of life, our fear of freedom and of taking real responsibility for ourselves. When he was dying he turned to his friend Robert Fox and asked, "Why is it, Bob, that the human race prefers necrophilia to biophilia?" Why indeed should the human race, with all its splendid achievements, its genius and imagination, its technological ability to bring an end to poverty, prefer death to life.

Sigmund Freud, having rejected the religious language of his Jewish inheritance, was unable to avoid the conclusion that human beings are in a state of continual tension between their love of life (Eros) and their love of death (Thanatos). Having dispensed with what seemed to him the outworn trappings of conventional religious belief, he was still unable to account for this internal civil war which had been expressed so clearly by his Hebrew ancestors as a stark choice between life and death.

M. Scott Peck is an American psychiatrist who was, for a period, a consultant to the Surgeon General of the United States army. In that capacity he was involved in studying in detail the case histories of the army officers involved in the MyLai massacre. His work in uncovering some of the underlying causes of that horrifying episode, as well as his experiences in helping troubled people, have led him to a point of view unpalatable to many of his fellow psychiatrists. He sees an obligation to examine human maladjustment and its destructive effects and to do so in terms of research into the problem of evil.

The People of the Lie is his first attempt to explore the psychology of evil. It is a disturbing and provocative book. He begins by examining the unquestioned assumptions which human beings make about the world in which they live. One assumption, shared by most of the so-called higher religions, is that it is a good world that has somehow become contaminated. In other words, he suggests that a theistic religion makes it impossible for people to separate the problem of evil from the existence of goodness. He observes that whilst many people ask the question, "Why is there so much evil in the world?" they seldom ask, "Why is there so much goodness in the world?" He concludes that for a religious person the problem of evil is inextricably linked with the fact of good and that the mystery of goodness is, if anything, even greater than the mystery of evil.

In spite of the enormous mystery of the subject, Scott Peck is surprised that there is no generally accepted definition of evil, though in our experience we all have some under-standing of its nature. In an effort to formulate a provisional definition he starts with the observation of his eight year old son: "Daddy, evil is 'live' spelt backwards." He goes on to define evil as that which is in opposition to life. Evil is that which kills life. And by that he does not mean merely physical murder. Evil is whatever quenches the human spirit, that which prevents growth or breaks the will to live. It is possible, he points out, to "break" a child or a horse without so much as harming a hair of its head. We know that it is possible to destroy the will or stunt the growth of others in an infinite variety of ways. "Evil . . . is that force residing inside or outside of human beings that seeks to kill life or liveliness. And goodness is its opposite. Goodness is that which promotes life and liveliness."

He has some acute observations about the people who are potentially the most destructive in their effect on others. The "people of the lie" are not generally those we might readily associate with sadistic or murderous impulses. He is not talking about the more obvious forms of human destructiveness. They are those whose level of proper self love is so fragile, that they are compelled to maintain a self-image that dares not entertain the idea of their own possible imperfection. And in order to sustain that image of themselves as perfect they are willing to destroy whatever or whoever challenges it. Those who are the most likely to puncture the idea of their perfection are likely to be those closest to them. He observes that religious people with impossibly high standards for their own behavior are very vulnerable at this point. The "lie" is that such human beings are persistent in their belief that there is nothing wrong with them. They are well-adjusted, sane, healthy-minded, decent respectable. It is others, their children, partners or colleagues, who are sick or maladjusted. Their own imperfection or inner darkness which they cannot bear to acknowledge is therefore projected onto others rather than face the truth about their own unfinished human nature.

It is to Carl Gustav Jung that we owe perhaps the greatest debt for his attempt to shed light on the problem of evil and the ways in which we shift the burden of our inner darkness by projecting it onto others. It was one of Jung's complaints against Christian theologians that they did not take evil seriously enough. Like early Friends he found himself in opposition to Augustinian theology and in particular the idea that evil is nothing more than the absence of good, just as darkness is the absence of light. Living in Europe during the days of the Third Reich, Jung saw collective evil as a powerful fact and it seemed to him that his Christian contemporaries had failed to come to terms with its terrifying reality.

Jung coined the term "collective unconscious" in an attempt to express the fact that we carry within us memories and images which have their origin in far distant events and probably reach back to the beginning of human history. Without our more recent knowledge about genetic codes he was forced to find some way of explaining the recurrence in dreams, in religious ritual, and paintings from many cultures, of the same symbols. He called these powerful and universal symbols "archetypes." Examples of archetypes appear . . . in Quaker thought. Light and Dark, Seed, Spirit, the Mountain of Vision, the Return to Paradise, and all the strange imagery of the Book of Revelation (and other Apocalyptic Books) do not belong only to the Biblical tradition from which Fox borrowed them. They occur again and again in other religious traditions.

Other archetypes include the God-man, the myths of resurrection and renewal, the hero, the wise-man, the great Mother, the Tree of Life, the androgynous being, one who includes (as we know we all do) elements of both masculine and feminine, the serpent, the child, etc.

Archetypes are very powerful symbols, Their energy touches us at deeper levels than those of our conscious life. Jung had observed, for example, the way in which the Nazis made use of these archetypes and used versions of Teutonic myths to rally Germany to their cause, as well as the deep anti-Semitic feelings which the Christian church had fostered over hundreds of years.

In addition to his exploration of archetypal symbols and their energy to motivate us at unconscious levels Jung also used the idea of the "shadow" to explain some of the potentially destructive elements in human behavior. In some ways his use of the term is unfortunate since he was not suggesting that the dark side of our unconscious life is in itself a destructive thing. What he did suggest was that each of us needs to make the inward journey and bring the invisible into the light. His own experience, and his work with those who come to him for help, had shown him that as soon as we are able to recognize and accept our "shadow" aspect it loses its power to disrupt our lives.

The shadow or dark self is not the whole of our inward and often hidden life. As Friends we are aware that this deep area is also the place of enlightenment, of an intuitive awareness of the direction we must take. It is the place we enter when we have become truly centered and listening and the place where we become aware of the God within. But for Jung the shadow part of us is also the repository of our unfulfilled life. It represents the unknown or little known qualities and attributes, and equally those aspects which we prefer not to acknowledge.

For Jung the meaning of human life was best expressed in what he called the process of individuation and the quest for wholeness, which is only another way of saying that our life work is to become what we are, to fulfill our potential and become complete and mature human beings. Some Christian theologian and psychologists have thought that this was a rather sharp diversion from the goal of perfection as the church has often expounded it. But in fact it is not far from what Jesus probably meant when he is recorded as saying, "You must be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect." The Greek word "telcos" which is used in Matthew's Gospel means finished or complete, fulfilled. Wholeness is only another way of saying it.

Unfortunately much of Christian spirituality has seen perfection in terms of a narrow righteousness or moral perfection rather than in terms of living out life completely and acknowledging the less acceptable aspects of our humanity which are undeniably part of us. It is difficult for those who have grown up in a conventional religious home or who are ardent idealists to come to terms with feelings which their religious home or background or personal value system encourages them to think of as less desirable.

If we were each of us to make a list of the attributes or feelings which we most dislike in others (e.g. greed, envy, ambition, lust, egotism, hostility, anger, bossiness, bullying, laziness, boastings, cruelty, etc.) we should probably find that we have made a list of the things that we find unacceptable in ourselves. Since we are ordinary as well as extraordinary human beings we are liable to find each of those undesirable aspects in ourselves, but if we cannot bear to acknowledge them as belonging to us we suppress the impulse or feeling as swiftly as we can. In fact we may even manage to deceive ourselves into thinking that the feeling was never there. But the suppressed material does not evaporate simply because we refuse to own it as ours. It lies beneath the surface of our conscious thought and is likely to erupt in more irrational ways.

In fact, if we feel an overwhelming rage when someone else rebukes us for a fault or we are irrationally annoyed about some quite trivial matter we can be fairly sure that we have seen the dark edge of what Jung calls our "shadow" self-the part of ourselves we find it most difficult to accept and be compassionate about.

Our "shadow" aspect does not consist simply of unrecognized or shameful aspects which we prefer to suppress. It shows up just as often in impulsive or inadvertent acts. We find ourselves doing or saying things we never intended at a conscious level. Or it may include what Elisabeth Kübler Ross calls "unfinished business" . . . old resentments, ambivalent attitudes to our parents or partners, secret hurts magnified or desires for the kind of life we have never had an opportunity to enjoy.

Jung found that most of those who came to him for help were needing to find a religious outlook and also a way of exploring areas of their lives which needed to find expression. Most of those who came to him were in what we now call "mid-life" crisis. Having established themselves in a career, brought up children or followed a particular vocation they found that there were other parts of themselves that seemed to be clamoring for attention. Often women felt a need to develop the masculine qualities which had been dormant during the child-rearing period of their lives, or men felt a need to explore the more feminine and intuitive side of their personalities. People who had chosen an academic career became aware of a need to develop and understand the more creative and intuitive side of themselves, etc.

Until the forgotten feelings, neglected areas, or unacknowledged qualities have been brought out into the light, the real danger is that they are likely to surface through a process of projection which may confuse and hurt other people. No doubt most of us have had the experience of hearing a rather bossy friend or colleague lamenting or protesting about the over-bearing ways of another colleague, or a possessive parent pouring scorn on those who cling to their children for far too long. We can be fairly sure that we are guilty of the same kind of projecting when we complain bitterly about attitudes in others which our friends, if they dared or cared enough, could tell us they had observed in us.

Whenever we catch ourselves out in a twinge of envy, a catty remark or a rush of anger we can try to uncover the unacknowledged need or aspect of our own behavior that we are failing to take responsibility for in a constructive way.

Most of us no doubt have some experience of the shadow side of Quaker Meetings, the conflict that we lack the courage to bring out into the open, the simmering resentments that can erupt in quite irrational ways in heated arguments about the color to use when repainting the Meeting House walls. No doubt many of us have been involved in attempts to enable the two most domineering members to come to terms with each other, and respect that of God in themselves and the other.

The most destructive power of the "shadow" can be seen in the conflict between groups of people of different ethnic cultures or ideological persuasion. For if we cannot bear to bring our unacknowledged fears or feeling into the light of consciousness we shall continue to need "enemies" onto which we can off-load the suppressed self-hate or fear of being overwhelmed which is simmering below the surface of our lives. Just as the power of our corporate silence in Quaker Meetings is far more vital than the sum total of our individual silence so the power of the "shadow" when it operates at a collective level is much more overwhelming than the individual fears and hostilities which are represented within it.

At a rational level we may find it totally incomprehensible that an individual like Klaus Barber should have done the things he is accused of doing. But a nation driven by its collective "shadow" is capable of sweeping individuals into a massive projection of self-hate and irrational violence in ways that are beyond our understanding if we have never dared to explore our own "unlived" life.

Evil remains a mystery even when we have used whatever insights are available to help us towards an understanding of it. Fortunately we do not have to solve the mystery before we decide whether to relieve some of the suffering that it causes . . . for although Friends have been reticent about using traditional Christian language to describe the problem of evil they have often understood what to do about it. . . . Jesus, through his stories about the Kingdom, tried to startle people into seeing for themselves both the roots of their own foolish or destructive behavior and also their true nature as human beings, as dearly loved off-spring of the eternal God.

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