Bud Harris - Confronting Evil: A Jungian Guide to Searching for Light In the Heart of Darkness

The very existence of evil and its mysterious and dramatic nature has presented us with one of the most difficult issues we have to face as human beings, personally and socially. For years we have lived in an age that is anxiously focused on security and the good life, while overlooking or trivializing the formidable powers of evil growing in our culture.

As I began my reflections on developing this material for a lecture I presented in 2014, I had some difficulty defining evil. Finally, I settled on my own definition of it. I consider anything that causes a wound to the soul of a human being as evil. This wound may be to the soul personally or collectively. Experts in Post Traumatic Stress Disorders now tell us that war creates wounds to the souls of people fighting and involved in them. But many other events besides wars create wounds to our souls. Violence, abuse, betrayal, serious illnesses, the loss of loved ones, natural disasters and many other things you can probably name fall into this category. Soul wounds impair our ability to trust in life, often in ourselves, and in our capacity to love and be loved.

It is very hard for me, and I think for most of us, to think about evil and to try and understand it in profound yet non-intellectual ways. Most of us prefer to deny it, distance ourselves from it, and intellectualize ourselves from it. We often prefer to create a bubble of innocence around ourselves which is self-imposed naivet. We have a hard time accepting its reality. Yet we are also at least dimly aware that the effect of ignoring the evils all around us is also a way of being engaged in them. If our denial fails we may become stuck in shock and dismay or, in some cases, begin to blame ourselves or even to identify with its perpetrators. I have seen these responses often enough in victims of abuse. In addition, we have a hard time seeing how we are participating in inflicting soul wounds through our attitudes and social and institutional structures while we are simply living our daily lives. But we also fear looking into our personal and collective shadows, the dark unconscious parts of ourselves, because we are afraid we might find evil there. Certainly Dr. Freud tended to think in that direction, and so do some of our more fundamentalist Christian groups. But Dr. Jung didnt think that way and neither do I. Yet, people can use their shadow characteristics to do evil things.

Today, evil confronts us on many levels, in our private lives and in society. Creating a future that values life and human beings depends on finding the courage today to face and confront evil and seek to understand it. We are challenged to find a way to overcome evil without creating another form of evil in its place. A task neither simple nor easy.

In this book I share some of my thoughts about evilwhen it can be transformed, when it can be prevented, and how we should consider confronting it when neither of these possibilities are present. We will also think about what the different meanings of evil might be in our landscape of life in general, and in Jungian individuation process in specific. This journey looks deeply into the human and psychological dimensions of evil and how the shadow sides of our personality are intertwined with it. During this journey we look at evil from a personal, an archetypal, and a collective perspective.

Let me also remind you that when we begin to study subjects like evil a lot of emotion and history can be stirred up. So, I ask you to remember that I am sharing a point of view that I hope will stimulate and challenge youbut I am not trying to convince you of anything. In addition, please be careful and pay attention to your own responses because when we are discussing evil, it can invade us and affect our shadows and vulnerabilities before we know it.

While I was developing this lecture and this book, I had to remember Jungs warning (CW, Vol. 10) that, The sight of evil kindles evil in the soulthere is no getting away from this fact. The victim is not the only sufferer; everybody in the vicinity of the crime, including the murderer, suffers with him (or her.) And yet, I found my work through this material a kind of a breakthrough to a new level of consciousness and a new level of appreciation for the capacities of the human heart.

At the end of each section, you will have the opportunity that I give in workshops to go deep within and reflect upon questions that may stir strong feelings inside youUse them as guideposts to listen to yourself.

I would like to invite you to journal your thoughts and your feelingsto write, to draw, to even scribbleand take your time. This is important work. Feel free to change your mind, to add more at a later time, and to expand to a larger personal journal. Be creative and take risks. Look deep within as you meet and discover your authentic self.