Recently
I posted a first-rate interview with Andrew
Harvey in which he comments on 'an inborn hatred of our
physical selves, saying that humans are in “a boat of meat that is
now exploding,” and the struggle we all go through in acknowledging
and loving the evil that’s within all of us.'
Never
has there been a time when it has been more urgent to find and
acknowledge our own individual and collective shadow
Here
is an introduction by Bryan Beck
Currently the collective shadow has run wild. Thus we, as a
species, are playing out suicidal tendencies on a global scale -
while individually, we are almost entirely unconscious of it. As this process unfolds, we are going to, collectively and
individually, be confronted with more and more shadow material as we
face catastrophe and collapse.
The process of exploring and beginning to own our own
personal shadows is of immense importance right now. In this way, we
can begin to see more clearly, and take full responsibility for, our
own roles in the crisis. We can become spiritually prepared instead
of being overwhelmed by the shadow material that catastrophes flood
us with.
We
can grow spiritually into our true Selves and experience more fully
the intrinsic link between humanity and the earth/cosmos. Honestly, I
see this as our spiritual duty right now, given that the planet seems
to be in late-stage hospice.
Only
a return to spirit will save us.
Approaching
Wholeness
Bryan
Beck
Carl
Jung’s concept of individuation brought spirituality within the
realm of Western psychology. Employing a more holistic approach than
Freudian psychology, Jung considered our deepest desires as spiritual
rather than sexual. According to his model of the psyche, striving
toward wholeness involves reconciling the opposing tendencies within
ourselves. This process of individuation, according to Jung, is “the
only struggle that is really worth while” (qtd. in Hannah 86).
In
order to understand Jung’s worldview, it is first necessary to
define a few of its basic tenets. Jung thought of life in terms of
archetypes and complexes. He defined archetypes as “active living
dispositions, ideas in the Platonic sense, that perform and
continually influence our thoughts and feelings and actions”
(Stevens 39). Thus, archetypes are ideas that are shared by all of
humanity, while manifesting for each of us in unique ways. For
example, we can think about the word boy. We all share a fairly
common view of what a boy is, yet there are innumerable variations
that allow us to differentiate one particular boy from the next.
Complexes are “the means through which archetypes manifest
themselves in the personal psyche” (Stevens 28).Thus, they are our
subjective experiences of the archetypes in our personal lives.
Jung
wrote about many archetypes being passed down throughout history. It
should be noted that Jung did not consider the archetype as mere
metaphor, but rather as a true biological phenomena, a “living
organism, endowed with generative force” (qtd. in Stevens 39). Of
the Jungian archetypes, a few particular ones are especially relevant
to the topic at hand: the Self, the persona, and the shadow.
The
Self is the organizing principle of all the remaining archetypes;
Jung referred to the Self as “the archetype of archetypes” (qtd.
in Stevens 41). This is not the usual concept of self that most
Westerners are accustomed to. Rather, as the capitalized S denotes,
this is a much broader concept. Many of us may think of our self as
our conscious awareness in day-to-day life. In Jungian terms,
however, this individual awareness, known as the persona, is just the
tip of the iceberg. The Self, to Jung, also contains the personal
unconscious and the collective unconscious, a repository of
archetypal memories that is shared by all of humanity. In fact, the
Self is also equated with the gods and deities of cultures throughout
history. In this way, Jung’s conception of the Self is grounded in
non-dual philosophy; that is, he conceives of creator and creation as
somehow one and the same. By striving toward wholeness, which is each
individual’s birthright, we are able to experience our own
divinity.
This
is not, however, a simple task. Even though we each carry a divine
nature, says Jung, most of us rarely recognize it. This is partly
because the process of individuation does not typically begin until
middle age. During the first half of life, Jung considered it our
duty to develop the ego and live a worldly existence. However, there
often comes a point, today popularly known as the “midlife crisis”,
when individuals can no longer live with the compromises that got
them through their earlier life. Explaining this metaphorically, Jung
said, “At the stroke of noon the descent begins. And the descent
means the reversal of all the ideals and values that were cherished
in the morning” (qtd. in Stevens 183). This descent involves a
process of identifying and owning our shadow.
The
shadow is Jung’s term for the emotionally charged aspects of our
selves that have been disowned during our development. In contrast to
the shadow is the persona, which is “the role we characteristically
play, the face we put on, when relating to others” (qtd. in Stevens
42). The persona is the socially acceptable mask that we wear, and
many people consider their persona to be their true self. However,
according to Jung, the persona is a superficial construct that only
represents a small portion of the personality. By identifying with
the persona and ignoring the shadow, we allow the shadow to
dissociate and gain autonomy. According to Jung, “Everyone knows
nowadays that people ‘have complexes’; what is not so well known
is that complexes can have us” (qtd. in Stevens 33). When thought
of in terms of the shadow, this means that, as the shadow gains
autonomy, it exerts more control over us and causes us to act largely
from our unconscious. Jung gives the following definition of the
unconscious:
Everything
of which I know, but of which I am not at the moment thinking;
everything of which I was once conscious but have now forgotten;
everything perceived by my senses, but not noted by my conscious
mind; everything which, involuntarily and without paying attention to
it, I feel, think, remember, want, and do; all the future things
which are taking shape in me and will sometime come to consciousness;
all this is the content of the unconscious (qtd. in Stevens 31).
And
so it is that, the more disowned our shadow, the more we allow
unconscious forces to direct our thoughts and behaviors. The process
of disowning our shadow, however, is not entirely negative. Indeed,
it is necessary for us to build a strong persona as we develop;
civilization itself would not be possible if it were not for our
tendency to disown the shadow to a certain degree. As mentioned
previously, the first half of life is a time dedicated to building a
strong ego and finding our own unique places in the world. This
process of building a sense of identify involves learning what is
socially acceptable; the shadow is disowned during this time out of
necessity.
Emergence
of the shadow into conscious awareness is typically a painful
experience, accompanied by subsequent feelings of guilt and
unworthiness. This is another reason that people often have
difficulty confronting it. In order to prevent the disowned shadow
from impinging upon our conscious awareness, we employ defense
mechanisms. Defense mechanisms provide safeguards that allow us to
avoid threats to our egos. The chief defense mechanism used to
protect us from the shadow is projection. By projecting our shadow
out into the world, we see our disowned qualities in others instead
of ourselves. While projection is necessary in order for us to
develop during the first half of life, it also causes us to
misattribute the dark aspects of life onto others, in effect making
them our scapegoats. As Jung explained, “projections change the
world into the replica of one’s own unknown face” (Jung 9).
According
to Jung, all individuals are manifestations of one consciousness, the
Self, or as many people commonly refer to it, God. This can be
conceptualized by mandalas, which Jung found particularly
fascinating. Mandalas are symmetrical works of art that have been
used to represent the nature of the soul by mystics throughout the
world. Mandalas are designed in quadrants, so that the artwork
appears the same no matter which way you look at it. In this way,
they represent the infinite nature of the universe. If we think of
the world in terms of the mandala, changing one aspect of the artwork
creates subsequent changes in the remaining quadrants. Thus it is
that Jung perceives reality; our consciousness literally shapes and
determines the world around us. By disowning the shadow, we project
it onto the world around us and find evil everywhere except within
our own selves.
The
disowned shadow often presents itself in the form of dreams. It is
important to remember that the persona and its defense mechanisms
create a barrier that protects us from the unpleasant presence of the
shadow. During sleep, however, our persona is no longer in control,
and our shadow and other forms of unconscious material are allowed to
present themselves. A dream indicative of the shadow emerging might
involve being in a military stronghold or other structure that is
under attack. An example given by June Singer involves a dream in
which one of her analysands found himself in a fortress surrounded by
electric fences and barbwire. The fortress was being attacked by
elephants who seemed very resilient, and almost impervious to the
obstacles preventing their entrance. According to Singer, the
elephants symbolize the essential ambiguity of the shadow itself:
untamed and disowned, the elephants, like the shadow, create havoc
and unwanted destruction. When owned and integrated into awareness,
however, the shadow can become a faithful companion, much like a
well-trained animal (197-198).
Examples
of the contrast between persona and shadow are found throughout
mythology and literature: Gilgamesh and Enkidu, Apollo and Dionysus,
Cain and Abel, Jacob and Esau, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, Dante
and Virgil, and Faust and Wagner are just a few examples of this
“twin” or “unlike brothers” motif. In reference to these
pairs, Jolande Jacobi says that “as they form a pair of opposites
which taken together constitute a ‘whole’, healing power is
attributed to them”; likewise, healing and spiritual growth are
found through owning the shadow (40).
While
some people are confronted by the shadow earlier in life and some
later, most people find themselves in its grip sometime between the
ages of 35 and 45. As already mentioned, this correlates with what is
known in our culture as the “midlife crisis”. It should be noted
that confrontation with the shadow is not something that everyone
experiences, but Jung believes that it is necessary if we are to grow
spiritually during the second half of life. “Jung saw two
possibilities for people as they enter middle age: they either change
or they become rigid” (Stevens 186). According to this view, we
either confront the shadow and subsequently reap spiritual rewards,
or we become more set in our ways and perceive the world in a more
dichotomous, “us-and-them”-type manner. I’m sure that we all
know of people who seem to become more stubborn and rigid as they
grow older; this, according to Jung, is a result of neglecting the
shadow and clinging relentlessly to our personas during the second
half of life. Coming to terms with the shadow and integrating it into
our consciousness is what Jung refers to as the process of
individuation:
Individuation
is essentially about waking up, becoming conscious and being
constantly alive to the possibility in one’s life for growth and
development. Jung maintained that some people never wake up, but some
wake up early, some in mid-life, others very late – perhaps during
a terminal illness or on their deathbed. Possibly in our society
those who never wake up are in the majority (Stevens 186).
As
previously mentioned, facing the shadow is something that occurs when
our previous way of living in the world is no longer sufficient or
rewarding. As is common of the midlife crisis, the process often
involves confronting our own mortality. Seeing that death is an
inevitable part of life, and coming to terms with this fact, are
often the first steps toward facing the shadow and loosening its grip
on our consciousness. “If one goes on living biologically and
economically into the second half without becoming conscious of
oneself existentially, then one is missing the point; life, in all
essentials, is finished” (Stevens 189). This may seem like a bleak
perspective, but it reflects Jung’s emphasis on the spiritual
nature of life: if the individual does not develop spiritually
through the process of individuation, then one is forfeiting his or
her birthright as a spiritual being.
People
often misunderstand the process of owning the shadow. It is a common
misconception that owning the shadow involves “living out one’s
shadow qualities” (Hannah 87). People who understand the shadow in
this manner see the process of individuation as a license to get away
with all sorts of immoral activities. According to Jung, however,
owning the shadow involves becoming aware of the ways in which we
project our own disowned qualities onto others. This process does not
involve acting out our less desirable instincts; rather, it involves
owning those instincts and accepting that they exist, while ceasing
to project the blame onto others.
Often
the process of owning the shadow is facilitated by a Jungian analyst.
The analyst is indispensable in some cases because the shadow is so
difficult to identify on one’s own. In fact, it is much more likely
for the people around us to notice our projections than it is for us
to see them ourselves. According to Jung, “No matter how obvious it
may be to the neutral observer that it is a matter of projections,
there is little hope that the subject will perceive this himself. He
must be convinced that he throws a very long shadow before he is
willing to withdraw his emotionally-toned projections from their
object” (Jung 9). Anthony Stevens gives an example of what it means
to identify the shadow during the course of analysis:
If
he happens to possess overt racial prejudices, it is sufficient to
ask him what it is about people of different color that he dislikes.
Common responses are that they are untrustworthy, sexually
promiscuous or perverse, morally delinquent, dirty in their personal
habits and so on. Should he deny all racial prejudice, then it is
usually sufficient to persuade him to talk about the sort of person
that he cannot stand. Once he gets going, he will give you a fairly
good picture of his shadow (45).
By
pointing out to the individual that these shadow qualities are a
projection, the analyst attempts to instill a new sense of personal
responsibility in the client. Many people have difficulty accepting
this, as they find it much more comfortable and simpler to continue
blaming others. It is up to the individual whether he or she wants to
continue exploring this path, or simply fall back into the safety of
projection.
For
the individual who chooses the path of individuation, this is just
the beginning of a long, and potentially arduous, process. Owning the
shadow is an ongoing process that is never completely finished; the
individual who undertakes this adventure is continually confronted by
more and more subtle forms of their own projections (Meier 91). As
the shadow becomes more integrated into the individual’s
personality, other archetypes beyond the shadow, namely the anima and
animus, begin to emerge into consciousness. Processing these
archetypes involves another process altogether, a process which is
beyond the scope of this paper.
Jung
sees these processes perpetuated on both an individual and collective
level; collectively speaking, groups and factions disown their
shadows by blaming and attributing evil to other groups. This is the
same process that occurs within individuals, except that its effects
can be more disastrous, in cases such as war and mass genocide.
Whether we agree with Jung about the validity of his model is a
matter of personal opinion and experience. However, I think that we
can all benefit from taking time to reflect upon our thoughts and
actions before rushing to judgment. As Jesus asks in Luke 6:41, "Why
do you observe the splinter in your brother's eye and never notice
the great log in your own?" In this world of people quick to
point the finger and blame each other, owning the shadow is a very
noble path to choose.
Works
Cited
Hannah,
Barbara. The Inner Journey: Lectures and Essays on Jungian
Psychology. Toronto: Inner City Books, 1999.
Jacobi,
Jalonde. The Way of Individuation. Trans. R F. Hull. New York:
Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1967.
Jung,
Carl G. Aion: Researches Into the Phenomenology of the Self.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1959.
Meier,
C. A. Personality: the Individuation Process in the Light of C.G.
Jung's Typology. Trans. David N. Roscoe. Einsiedeln, Switzerland:
Daimon, 1977.
Singer,
June. Boundaries of the Soul. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1972.
Stevens,
Anthony. On Jung. 2nd ed. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1999.
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