Journey into Self: The Valley of the Shadow of Death
So, being refreshed Christian addressed himself to his 1oumeywith his sword drawn in his hand; for he said, I know not but some other enemy may be at hand. But he met with no other affront from Apollyon quite through this valley. Now, at the end of this valley was another, called the Valley of the Shadow of Death, and Christian must needs go through it, because the way to the Celestial City lay through the midst of it.
Now, this valley is a very solitary place. . . .Now here Christian was worse put to it than in his fight withApollyon.1 In writing of the night sea journey which corresponds to this ·Valley of Death, Campbell speaks of the “passage of the threshold” as being a sort of self-annihilation. It means a voluntary renunciation of the ego’s domination.
The hero is swallowed by the whale dragon and goes inward beyond the confines of the visible world, to be born again. The disappearance corresponds to the passing of a worshipper into a temple where he is to be quickened by the recollection of who and what he is, namely dust and ashes, unless immortal. The temple interior, the belly of the whale, [ or in our case the Valley of the Shadow of Death] and the heavenly land beyond, above or below, the confines of the world, are one and the same.
That is why the approaches and e trances to temples are Hanked and defended by gargoyles and dragons, etc. These are the threshold guardians to ward away all incapable of encountering the higher silences within. They are the preliminary embodiments of the dangerous aspect of the presence, corresponding to the mythological ogres that bound the conventional world. 2
This throws a further light on the meaning of the fight with Apollyon. He can now be recognized as the guardian of the depths. If Christian had succumbed to him he would have failed to complete the ordeal and would, indeed, have _ been dragged back to the City of Destruction as Apollyon’s vassal. And as it was he might have died of his wounds had not the Hand brought him the miraculous healing leaves. But the ordeal was not yet completed, for the truth proclaimed by the Cross had still to be made actual in Christian’s own experience.
For unless a man is willing to take up the Cross and lose his life, he cannot find it. As St. Thomas Aquinas wrote: “No creature can attain a further grade of nature, without ceasing to exist.” The ego must be sacrificed, must in a sense die, if the Self is to be made an actual and conscious part of the individual’s psyche. During a psychological analysis there is frequently some such preliminary encounter with the power demon before the decisive adventure confronts the seeker. It is a genuine ordeal which really tests the psychological fiber and it is not much wonder if some quail before it.
But it is most regrettable if the individual is not able to face the issue and overcome the demon, but has to tum back at this late stage of his journey, for it usually means that he will then relapse into a worse bondage than he was under before. His neurosis will then be more acute, or his emotional problems more insoluble than ever, while the consciousness of his own power problem which has been brought to light and which he failed to conquer will add to his sense of guilt and inadequacy, just as Christian would have been hailed back to his home, more completely the slave of Apollyon than before.
But to go on, if he cannot deal with the dragon who guards the depths, would surely lead to a far worse disaster. So that Christian’s encounter with Apollyon carries a greater significance than was at first apparent. It was the ordeal or test which determined whether or not Christian would be able to undertake and carry through the definitive task – whether he could face the perils of the soul in the night journey, and could hold his allegiance to the Self, the core of his own being, even through experiences that would bring him pretty close to schizophrenia, where the ordered world was left far behind and where he found himself in a place of confusion, of primal chaos.
Dante tells us that this condition is characteristic of the Inferno. For order belongs to the light world, where the sun rules and marks out the ordered progress of the day and of the seasons, and where the spiritual powers of consciousness and reason have prevailed against the blind forces of the primal chaos. But in the Valley of Death, the sun is darkened and chaos reigns. Bunyan’s introversion- Christian’s journey- led still deeper into the abyss of the unconscious.
At the entrance to the Palace Beautiful, Christian had met with the lions,, a symbol of power, which appeared first in animal form, meaning that they were an expression of an instinctive attitude, nature’s way of protecting the individual from personal injury and hunger.
Thus the lions represented the aggressive side of the instinct of self-preservation, and this Christian had successfully avoided. Then at the entrance to the Valley of Humiliation he met with Apollyon, who, as a fabulous monster, represented ego-power raised to demonic heights. This is not just the natural instinct of self-preservation, it is hybris, arrogant selfassertion, and Apollyon’s taunts and claims accord with this interpretation. The power attitude however, was still personified, i.e., it was seen as in a mirror – this is the first step toward consciousness.
Christian could see what it was he was fighting, and he succeeded in overcoming the demon monster, though it was a close shave. But, as Christian prepared to go down into the Valley of the Shadow of Death, he began to realize that he would have to encounter far more subtle and dangerous enemies. Nonmaterial powers, dark uncanny influences that attack a man from within his own psyche – these are the true perils of the soul.
The spirit forces that undermine a man’s morale and overthrow his belief in the order of the world and in rational law are indeed dangerous enemies. They come from the limitless and unordered, totally irrational, sphere of the primal chaos, and can produce panic, uncertainty, delusions, and madness.
They are the forces which are let loose in times where the ordinary familiar order of life is drastically interfered with, as in any widespread disaster; then the rules and customs of civilized behavior give way to the brute law of “save yourself and let the devil take the hindermost.” These are the forces, too, that are invoked in psychological warfare, where the intent is so to play on the opponent’s fears that he may be overthrown by his own confusion and anxiety before it is necessary to strike even one direct blow.
Panic is a worse danger than fire or earthquake or atomic bombs. But these terrors of the darkness are not only loosed by outer disaster. When a man is too long alone, the outer world may recede and his libido is gradually turned back upon the psyche, where it sinks down into the unconscious and begins to activate the archetypes. In this way the night journey is initiated, whether one is prepared for it or not.
Bunyan was in such a case. He was in prison for twelve long years. Fortunately for his sanity, he was already prepared by his lifelong habit of introversion to withstand the onslaughts of his unconscious, and, although he evidently came very near to breaking during the period he is describing here, he won through, and it is at least possible that this piece of active imagination was the means by which he was able to tum the dangerous introversion of the libido into the willed adventure of the night journey.
For it is through the voluntary participation by the conscious that the worst danger is avoided. This is the chief safeguard against disintegration; for if one can say, “I will voluntarily go, there, where I must go,” one avoids the psychological split which is the most dangerous part of the experience; it is as though, at least, one takes oneself with one. As he approached the valley, Christian met two men hurrying away from it as fast as they could go.
This is the second time Christian met men running away from some threat. Evidently his own tendency to :Hinch in the face of danger had not been entirely overcome by his recollection that to run is more dangerous than to stand one’s ground.
This was the argument he used to summon his courage when he heard of the lions in the path at the Hill Difficulty, and he went through a similar argument with himself before the fight with Apollyon, when he reminded himself that he only had armor in front and none behind.
Now here, again, he met men running away. He stopped them and asked them: Whither are you going? . . ,They said, Badk! back! and we would have you to do so too, if either life or peace is prized by you. Why, what’s the matter? said Christian. Matter! said they; we were going that way as you are going, and went as far as we durst; and indeed we were almost past coming back; for had we gone a little further, we had not been here to bring the news to thee. ‘
But what have you met with? said Christian.
Why, we were almost in the Valley of the Shadow of Death; but that, by goodhap, we looked before us, and saw the danger before we came to it. But what have you seen? said Christian.
Seen! Why, the Valley itself, which is as dark as pitch; we also saw there the hobgoblins, satyrs, and dragons of the pit; we heard also in that Valley a continual howling and yelling, as of a people under unutterable misery, who there sat bound in affliction and irons; and over that Valley hang the discouraging clouds of confusion.
Death also doth always spread his wings over it. In a word, it is every whit dreadful, being utterly without order. 3
Not a very encouraging prospect for the timid Christian. But these are the forces that always arise to meet a man whenever he is obliged to go down to the borders of the nether world, whether he is forced there by psychic illness, or goes voluntarily in order to redeem the lost values, which like lost souls, have fallen into the unconscious, or have, perhaps, never as yet emerged, having lived only in a sort of twilight existence in the unrealized parts of the psyche.
But their lack has meant that he has had to struggle through life like a half-man. And now the cry of distress of these lost part-souls was becoming audible. Would Christian be able to rescue them or were they destined to remain bound until the final judgment? In Dante’s vision no hope was held out of their rescue nor of their redemption through suffering, and the man in the iron cage was in like ·case, but in the alchemical philosophy of Bunyan’s day hope was held out that by the opus the Ethiopian, the Black Son of the Chaos, might be rescued and washed until he became white.4
And furthermore it was recognized by the alchemists that he was the irreplaceable, the indispensible, prima materia on which the whole work was based. ~Esther Harding, Journey into Self, Page 166-171
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