One Does Not Become Enlightened By

From Alchemical Studies (Collected Works, Vol. 13), a collection of Jung's essays interpreting medieval alchemical texts as projections of the psyche's inner dynamics. Jung spent decades studying alchemy not as proto-chemistry but as a symbolic language for the individuation process. The quote encapsulates his concept of the Shadow — the unconscious, repressed, or morally inferior aspects of the personality that must be made conscious rather than idealised away. The "figures of light" refer to spiritual or mystical inflation; the "darkness" is the Shadow that, when acknowledged, becomes a source of psychological wholeness rather than a threat.