The Nature of Darkness...By Rev. Dr. Robert S. Bitting Hp

Having been and internet user since 1993, and often a user of Message boards and chat rooms…I have noticed a disturbing trend in the online Pagan community…there seems to be a general belief that darkness is somehow inherently evil, and that light is not only inherently good, but it is to be revered over darkness. In my opinion this is not only a misconception, but can at time be a dangerous one.

There are some that refuse to recognize the darkness at all, and of those who do, there is a feeling that darkness and light must somehow be brought into balance. This is not how nature works. If you look at the universe as a whole you will see that it is composed of 95% darkness and 5% light, not easy to bring balance to those numbers, and indeed why would you want to do so?

The Universe was created from darkness, out of the divine Lust that the Goddess felt for herself…She is darkness, and out of her darkness she brought forth light.

Yes, some darkness can be evil, and so can some light…Corn grows well in the white, hot sunlight in July, but place a Boston fern in that sunlight and it dies quickly, robbed of life giving moisture and burned to its roots. This can also be the case with Psychic light…it can be loving, gentle and life-affirming when it needs to be, but unbridled and used without desecration, it can cause severe psychic burn…The overuse of this Psychic white-light has and is causing psychic burn in many people today. Careful consideration of both light and darkness is one of the things that I see as lacking today.

Instead of considering darkness as always evil, and light as always good, perhaps we should look at darkness as protective and cleansing…like the sweet darkness of a warm bed on a winters morning, or the restorative darkness of sleep, when your body is overcome with fever…and the light as sometimes causing burn, and burn-out! We should all consider the true nature of darkness and light, lest we end up like that Boston Fern in July.

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