Shadow Work in Mysticism and Mythology: Why Spiritual Transformation Begins in Darkness
The Darkness Beneath the Spiritual Path
If you have been on the modern spiritual side of social media lately, whether you’re learning about tarot, astrology, or other spiritual endeavors, chances are you’ve heard all about “love and light,” healing, manifestation, and positivity. While seeing the good in everything isn’t a bad thing, it has led to toxic positivity, and if you’re going on a shadow journey, you will have an extremely difficult time if you’re only focusing on the “love and light” of it all.
Ancient mystical traditions understood something different than today’s modern spirituality: transformation requires descent. Before enlightenment came the underworld, the abyss, ego death, chaos, and confrontation with self. And if you’ve read any myths of heroes, from The Odyssey to the Bible, you will realize they all have one thing in common. Before the hero can become a hero, they must go on a journey through darkness before transformation. Have you ever wondered why that is?
What modern psychology calls shadow work has been explored for centuries through mythology, mysticism, ritual, and spiritual initiation. As discussed in my previous post, Shadow Work: What Is It? Cause it’s Not What Instagram Told You, the Shadow isn’t simply trauma or negativity. It’s the hidden, rejected, unconscious self, and confronting it has always been part of spiritual awakening.
What Is the Shadow?
To review from my last blog, Carl Jung believed every person contains unconscious aspects of themselves that they reject or repress. These hidden aspects form the Shadow; emotions like rage, jealousy, fear, desire, and others are included within it. These are all the things we are taught are “bad” or that make us “too much.” The nuance here is that the Shadow is not evil, and sometimes what we repress most deeply is our potential. Jung believed that through the process of shadow work, we could achieve wholeness through integration rather than perfection. To learn more about Carl Jung and his views on shadow work, please visit Shadow Work: What Is It? Cause It’s Not What Instagram Told You?
If you’re anything like me, trying to see through all the toxic positivity on Instagram and TikTok within the spiritual community, then you have probably done a deep dive into other resources and leaders in shadow work. During one of my deep dives, I came across the book The Dark Side of the Light Chasers by Debbie Ford. The title alone drew me in. It’s a quick read and only about eight hours on Audible. I had a feeling this book would cut through all the noise surrounding the topic, so I started listening. I’ll be honest, the introduction sounded like a lot of the same material I had already heard, but I kept going. As Debbie got deeper into explaining shadow work, her metaphors and stories made me reflect on my own life. I realized the times I had “shut a door in my castle” and forgotten about it.
Ford compares us to castles. When we’re young, we stroll through our castles and explore every room with wonder, awe, and whimsy. You may have one room that represents your creativity and another that represents your generosity. Then there are the rooms that represent greed, jealousy, and bitchiness. As we grow up through our life experiences, we shut those doors, the doors that hold the parts of ourselves society has deemed unlovable. These closed doors make up our Shadow. For many of us, we spend the first few decades of our lives closing those doors, and some never try to reopen them again. However, for the ones who do, that is where their shadow work begins.
While reading, something really stuck out to me. Ford talks about using these “negative” aspects of ourselves to our advantage. I know, how can being selfish be advantageous? I can be a bitch. This is typically a trait frowned upon by society, and when someone calls you a bitch, you tend to repress that behavior. But I challenge you to do this the next time you repress your bitchiness, jealousy, or selfishness: ask yourself how these traits might actually serve you. Can being a bitch help you in your business when you have a supplier who messed up an order? Can selfishness help you conserve your energy and set boundaries with your family and loved ones by saying no?
Ford emphasizes that denying darkness also suppresses the light. For example, repressing anger may also repress boundaries, and repressing ambition may repress your power. The goal of shadow work is not to become “pure,” but to become whole.
Why Darkness Appears in Mysticism: The Dark Night of the Soul
You may remember that I briefly mentioned mysticism, ancient mystical traditions, and how transformation requires descent. This is where I would like to dive more deeply into mysticism and its relation to shadow work. You have likely heard the word mysticism before, but just in case you haven’t, or are unclear on the definition, mysticism is the pursuit of truth through direct experience and transformation. Common themes in mystical traditions include death, rebirth, suffering, initiation, and symbolic transformation. Examples of these can be seen in mythology across cultures throughout the world. As previously mentioned, all these stories and paths have one thing in common: there is always a descent before ascension.
One mystic who highlights this in his writing is the 16th-century Catholic priest John of the Cross. Not only was he a priest, but he was also a poet and mystic. He led reforms and became one of Christianity’s most influential writers on the soul’s union with God. One of his most famous writings, Dark Night of the Soul, which he wrote while imprisoned during religious reform conflicts, is essentially a mystical version of what psychology would later describe as confrontation with the Shadow.
In his writing, John describes spiritual transformation as a painful process of inner purification. Sounds incredibly depressing, right? But John wasn’t talking about ordinary sadness or depression in a casual sense. Instead, the “dark night” referred to a profound spiritual crisis: feeling emotionally empty, experiencing a loss of certainty, and having your entire identity shift beneath you. For some, this may mean feeling abandoned by meaning, purpose, or even whatever higher power they believe in.
So far, this doesn’t sound like fun. When the Dark Night happens, we are shaken, and everything we believed was true about ourselves suddenly seems like it might not be. In tarot, this may look like pulling The Tower. John believed that before spiritual awakening could occur, false attachments and illusions had to fall away. To lose everything you believed to be true about yourself, your life, and your reality would be deeply transformative, but the process would feel disorienting, painful, lonely, and chaotic. Why? Because of our egos. They are fragile things, and when we lose the structure surrounding them, our world flips upside down. Though the Dark Night is not a punishment, it is transformation through dissolution.
By now, you’re probably wondering how this is all connected. Like the Dark Night of the Soul, shadow work also requires a death of illusion. In shadow work, we confront unconscious fears, denied emotions, false identities, projections, and performative personas. That confrontation, like the Dark Night, can destabilize the identity we have spent years carefully constructing. Someone who identifies as “the strong one” may uncover resentment, while “the healer” may confront their jealousy. These realizations fracture our self-image.
Both Jungian shadow work and mystical traditions describe a similar process: descent, disillusionment, and the shattering of identity. This is why shadow work feels less like “healing” and more like unraveling. Before transformation comes disintegration. Modern spirituality adds a lot of fluff to this process and often markets shadow work as peaceful, aesthetic, and endlessly uplifting. But mystics like John of the Cross understood that awakening is uncomfortable and that growth often feels like grief. This wasn’t referring to ordinary sadness or romanticized suffering. Shadow work and the Dark Night are not meant to glorify pain. The goal is transformation through conscious confrontation so that a more honest self can emerge. In both mysticism and shadow work, transformation begins the moment illusion stops protecting us from ourselves.
The Danger of Romanticizing the Darkness
Have you ever met someone after years of not talking, and all they can seem to discuss is their suffering? Or do you have a friend who believes every partner you date is the same as the last, and none of them are good enough for you? They may be projecting their past wounds onto you, and that becomes the lens through which they now see the world. They no longer view their pain as an experience; it has become part of their identity.
With shadow work regaining popularity again, we must be careful not to romanticize it. Darkness is not an aesthetic in that sense. To avoid this, we cannot mistake pain for wisdom or romanticize trauma. The goal is not to become consumed by darkness, but to learn how to relate to it consciously and accept ourselves with compassion rather than shame.
How to Begin Shadow Work Through Mysticism
All of this information is well and good, but if we don’t know how to apply it and if you’ve stayed this long, you probably want to know how then where do we begin?
For this post, I want to discuss how to begin shadow work in a more spiritual, mystical way through mythology, tarot, and other symbolic practices. One way is through the study of myths and the symbolism within them. Choose a mythology you are drawn to: Norse, Greek, Egyptian, and so on. Pay attention to mythological figures who disturb you or make you uneasy. Are there any archetypes you admire, like Artemis or Hel? Is there an “underworld” within yourself that you may be avoiding?
You’re probably wondering, “How is this helpful to my shadow work?” Myths often mirror the unconscious, and studying them may reveal which parts of ourselves we avoid and which parts we long to embody more fully.
Other practices include tarot reflection, dream journaling, meditation, and rune work. The goal of these practices is to communicate with the unconscious, which often speaks to us in symbols before language. Journaling with prompts is another classic and effective way to ask the difficult questions we may avoid asking ourselves. I have made my own shadow journal with 182 prompts, which you can download in my shop here.
Rituals are also a meaningful way to include spirituality in your shadow journey. This doesn’t need to be complicated. It can look like taking a meditative walk, practicing intentional solitude, or journaling during moon phases. These rituals should help you reflect and create emotional and symbolic meaning around inner change.
Mythology, mysticism, and psychology all point toward the same truth: transformation requires confrontation with our hidden selves, the darkest and most repressed parts of us. The ancient mystics understood what modern culture often forgets: we are not transformed by avoiding darkness, but by learning to walk through it consciously.
Sources and Inspiration
The Dark Side of the Light Chasers by Debbie Ford
Writings and concepts from Carl Jung and analytical psychology