Sacred fire, when it burns

The sacred fire can be as destructive as physical fire, spreading to extremes that are individually and socially deadly. The fires of Hell burned heretics and witches. More generally, the possible excesses of the fire of enthusiasm are liable to possess an individual to burn his or her vessels and the standards and effigies he or she used to adore. Rigid and exclusive attachment to a specific object or a structure of thought burns, like the radical, excessive, eccentric, or extreme forms of religion and belief. They preclude a symbolic understanding and by the same token, a confrontation with the shadow. As a result, they also prevent access to the transformative power of archetypal contact, the sacred fire, and block the way to individuation.