A Jungian-Sufi Reflection on Spiritual Rupture and Hidden Renewal

There’s a scene that has been unexpectedly recurring over and over in my mind over this past year— not from my own memory, but from a film I watched many years ago. And it was a film that left no deep impact on me, truth be told. At least not until now.

The scene is from Contact, the 1997 sci-fi film based on Carl Sagan’s novel. The plot is only half-remembered, but one moment has seared itself into my imagination like a recurring dream, an archetypal parable or even religious symbol.

A massive machine is built — part starship, part portal — intended to initiate contact with a higher intelligence. It’s a global event, full of hope and gravity. And then, just as the machine is about to activate, a religious terrorist blows it up. It all comes crashing down. The dream is shattered. The project is presumed dead.

But then — quietly, away from the spectacle — someone takes the protagonist aside and reveals a secret: a second machine was built, in total secrecy. Hidden from the world. It still exists. The journey is not over. Contact is still possible.

While this scene and film meant nothing to me for nearly thirty years — I’ve found myself haunted recently with this particular scene. Haunted not in the way a traumatic memory haunts, but in the way a potent dream or spiritual symbol clings to your psyche. It has somehow re-emerged from my memory to ‘tell me’ something.

The Collapse of the First Machine

I’ve been reading a lot of Carl Jung and deep psychology recently, along with my regular ‘spiritual’ reading, and I thought I would analyze this ‘memory’ from a perspective that seems very real and raw to me right now.

In Jungian terms, the destruction of the ‘first machine’ is the the death of the “persona” — the conscious self we construct for the world. For me, that machine was everything I once was: a priest, a monk, a pastor, a spiritual leader, a religious authority. It was built with passion, effort, sweat and tears over many years… and the conviction that I was on a righteous path toward truth or transcendence.

But life has a way of sending in the saboteurs. Some external, some internal. The machine was blown up — by anxiety, by over-work, by bad-actors, by lack of ‘self-care’, by corrupt clerics, by indifferent canon lawyers, by phony spiritual fathers and elders... I stood in the ashes of my former life, the first temple laid low. Everything around me was destroyed.

That moment — the disillusionment, the collapse — is one of the most terrifying phases of individuation. The ego, having identified so deeply with the outer structure, doesn’t know how to survive the wreckage.

This past year, for me, brough about the most challenging moments and deepest depths of this wreckage. With my way forward obscured, my sense of purpose lost, and my whole identity up to this point erased, I fell into an unexpected and very deep depression this past October when I was quietly not invited to my own grandmother’s funeral due to my move towards Islam — after spending years conducting funerals as a priest and spiritually attending to so many suffering and elderly. I was totally shut out. And it hurt more than I could say.

And yet, in the darkness, the soul endures.

The Secret of the Second Machine

When the first machine is gone, when your public self has dissolved, what remains?

The answer, I’ve come to believe, is the Self. Not the ego. Not the persona. But the deep, hidden Self that Jung described as the totality of our being — the union of conscious and unconscious, of brokenness and grace. That Self — true inner core of us in which is reflected the Image of God — is building something in the shadows. Something truer.

And here’s the mystery: the second machine had been under construction all along — even if we did not perceive it.

The years I spent struggling, grieving, praying, pleading— they weren’t wasted. There was no sense of ‘unanswered prayers’. They were definitely ‘answered’ — because God is always with us. Rather, these years were the hidden forge. The materials were being gathered in the unconscious. What I perceived as a collapse was really a clearing of the stage. Something more authentic — less grandiose, less performative — was quietly being assembled.

Where I Am Now

The ‘Contact’ film imagery re-occurring in my mind is no accident. I feel like I’m approaching that second machine. Maybe I’m already inside it? Maybe it is me.

God knows.

My life today no longer has the clarity of a title like “monk” or “imam” or “priest” or “professor.” But I sense a movement towards true contact. Not with aliens or higher intelligences, but with the deepest, truest form of myself. A Self beyond inherited dogma, beyond institutional roles, beyond trauma.

Jung wrote that we do not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. That, I think, is what the second machine is for. Not escape, but integration. Not perfection, but a quiet, hidden, and secret wholeness.

The Hidden Friend, the Inner Beloved

In the Sufi path, this image takes on even greater resonance. What Jung called the Self, the Sufis often call the Beloved — or, in other words, a reflection and manifestation of the only true Reality, which is God. And the process of losing the outer structure is not failure — it is fana’, annihilation of the ego, the self that must fall away for Love to be known — in order that we know Him.

Rumi writes:

“Don’t grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.
The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”

That second machine? It is not really a machine at all. It is the Friend who never left you, the One who was secretly fashioning your heart into a chamber fit for His presence. It’s the Lover calling you to Him — into the deep, in silence, hidden, quietly.

The “terrorist” who blew up your first machine may well have been God Himself — tearing down the idol of your first vision so that you could learn to see in secret.

After all, everything is ultimately from the will of God — and everything from the Lord is a gift. Including — and perhaps especially — our trials.

In the end, the journey isn’t about contacting something “out there,” but awakening to the Divine presence that has always been with us.

Indeed, it is We Who created humankind and fully know what their souls whisper to them, and We are closer to them than their jugular vein. (Quran 50:16)

Jung gestured toward this with his concept of the archetype of the Self. The Sufi walks it, burns through it, is undone and remade by it — until only the Beloved remains.

So if you, too, have watched the machine blow up — if your public story has come apart and you’re wandering in the ruins — know this:

There is another machine. But it may not look like anything you’ve built before.

But it’s waiting for you… should you have eyes to see and a heart ready for hidden intimacy with God.

We often try to see with the heart of the ego and of reason… But it is only with the eyes of the heart that we can see rightly.

May God grant us strength and grace upon this journey.

Personal Update: In a month, I will move back to my beloved hometown of Pittsburgh. I intend to spend my time working, writing, and continuing my study of Arabic. Additionally, I am working towards a second Masters/Certificate in psychology and counseling with an emphasis on Jungian deep psychology.

If you like this content, please consider a small donation via PayPal or Venmo. I am currently studying Islam and the Arabic language full-time, and any donation — however small! — will greatly help me to continue my studies, my work, and my sustenance. Please feel free to reach me at saidheagy@gmail.com.

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Thank you, and may God reward you! Glory to God for all things!