Physicists and Dark Matter

I read somewhere recently that physicists believe that 60% of the universe is made up of dark matter. Some even suggest an even greater percentage if you add the dark energy. The same is true of the human psyche. It is pretty much agreed among psychoanalysts that the greatest percentage of the human psyche is subconscious (if you are Freudian) or unconscious (if you are Jungian). Jung spent a great deal of time studying and writing about the Shadow, that dark, mysterious and important component of the human makeup. It’s like an electric current: you need both the positive and the negative for power. All positive with no negative is harmless and useless. Good and evil, darkness and light and their relation is a profound mystery that we would be wise to investigate.

George Grant, the great Canadian philosopher, wrote:

Philosophy is for those who have moved beyond any simple certainty. It is for those who have come face to face with the mystery of existence and who have seen how profound a mystery it is. Philosophy is the attempt to fathom that profundity- that is, to find the wisdom which will enable us to live as we ought.

Now the sense of mystery arises for people in two ways; first from just plain wonder at the world around them, and secondly from the anguish of their own lives.

I am suspicious of anything that doesn’t have the undercurrent of anguish. The hyper-faith positive thinkers ring false because of the noticeable absence of the reality of suffering and evil that personally touches our lives. This is one of the things that is very difficult to teach in our community. Some people feel the need to believe and feel positively about everything all the time. To give them permission to be honest about the perpetual pain in their lives, to me, is a profoundly important step on their way to becoming fully human.

The fine art photograph with the beautiful contrast of darkness and light, is the creation of my friend Howard Nowlan.

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