On the Shadow

“Taking it in its deepest sense, the shadow is the invisible saurian tail that man still drags behind him. Carefully amputated, it becomes the healing serpent of the mysteries. Only monkeys parade with it.” Carl Jung, The Integration of the Personality

The challenge of the shadow awaits each of us.  When we ignore it little tricks get played out on us like stubbing our toe as we go to shake the hand of a person we have projected too much importance on. Or those embarrassing slips of the tongue.

The shadow has both a personal and a collective dimension and on the collective scale it extends to the diabolic.  Horror films fascinate many of us for this reason: they play out on the screen the shadow imagery that remains buried in the deeper layers of the psyche.  Does it need to remain buried or can we begin the process of integration?  Can we afford not to?

Jung’s point:

“Such a man knows that whatever is wrong in the world is in himself, and if he only learns to deal with his own shadow he has done something real for the world. He has succeeded in shouldering at least an infinitesimal part of the gigantic, unsolved social problems of our day.” CW 11: Psychology and Religion: West and East. P.140

Related Links from Wikipedia:

• Jung’s Concept of the Shadow
• Shadow: The Hidden Aspects of Self
• The Shadow Muse — Gifts of Your Dark Side
• Shadow work example
• The Shadow Process
• The 3-2-1 Process
• Inviting the demon. (Milarepa, Tibetan Buddhism)(The Shadowissue) Judith Simmer-Brown, Parabola Vol.22 No.2 (Summer 1997) pp.12-18