In 1999, the company Konami published a video game for the Playstation called Silent Hill, a psychological horror with fearful aspects focused on the usual surprise and shock that any slasher movie or ghost story could convey, but toned with very heavy personal spiritual experiences. Given the nature of the horror genre, it is almost invariably negative, but I am personally fascinated by its wonderful parallels (that I see) between it and the work of St. John of the Cross, Dark Night of the Soul.
The major theme of both these works is known as Positive Disintegration, a theory of personality development that sees anxiety, tension, despair, and other severe negative experiences as vital to human growth. It can be compared to the snake shedding its skin (which in many ancient cultures, was seen as a symbol of immortality), though very obviously in a violent and agonizing way. But like the snake, it is a key part to their growth and shaping; though for man, it is a spiritual progression as opposed to a natural phenomenon. With this in mind, I’d like to proceed to parallel the shared themes of Silent Hill and Dark Night of the Soul in accord with this idea of positive disintegration.
Very simply, the Dark Night is any experience of spiritual desolation. Sorrow is the norm, all sensations feel caustic, and worse than any natural night, all light fades away. Doubt, despair, and fear prevail. This is precisely what the Everyman characters experience in Silent Hill, a physical representation of the Dark Night: mists envelop everything, the sun never shines, life is either absent or distorted - indeed, the entire world is distorted. Reality seems to crumble before your eyes, materiel apparently burning and evaporating, some sights randomly vanishing into thin air. I find the key mark of comparison is the incredible distortion, a sense of wrongness to everything.
What variously occurs in Silent Hill is a loved one of the Everyman is somehow trapped in this other-world that the titular town, Silent Hill, has some horrid connection to (revealed to be the effect of a Satanic cult later on), and the protagonist must endure terrible experiences to find the beloved. Were it merely the living dead and other monstrosities encountered, the story would not be so disturbing and despondent.
John of the Cross seems to say that the material reality, the universe, is itself more in kind with Silent Hill’s grotesquery and dissonance, pervaded by anger, lust, despair, fear, and arrogance. I do not mean to say that St. John proposes that the world is inherently evil, but here we must be very aware of its encroachment. The Divine has no threat of desire for savagery, lust, or domination.
Like the Everymen of Silent Hill, our love must surpass our fear and aversion to pain in order to recover our beloved; and like St. John of the Cross, St. Thérèse of Lisieux, Saint Paul of the Cross, and Mother Teresa of Calcutta, our love for God must surpass our desires for aught else.
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