(Persona, ego, and shadow: the three layers of psyche)
The persona is what we would like to be and how we wish to be seen by the world. It is our psychological clothing and it mediates between our true selves and our environment just as our physical clothing presents an image to those we meet. The ego is what we are and know about consciously. The shadow is that part of us we fail to see or know.
The shadow is that which has not entered adequately into consciousness. It is the despised quarter of our being. It often has an energy potential nearly as great as that of our ego. If it accumulates more energy than our ego, it erupts as an overpowering rage or some indiscretion that slips past us; or we have a depression or an accident that seems to have its own purpose. The shadow gone autonomous is a terrible monster in our psychic house.
Some of the pure gold of our personality is relegated to the shadow because it can find no place in that great leveling process that is culture. Curiously, people resist the noble aspects of their shadow more strenuously than they hide the dark sides. To draw the skeletons out of the closet is relatively easy, but to own the gold in the shadow is terrifying. It is more disrupting to find that you have a profound nobility of character than to find out you are a bum.
Ignoring the gold can be as damaging as ignoring the dark side of the psyche, and some people may suffer a severe shock or illness before they learn how to let the gold out.
The fulcrum, or center point, is the whole (holy) place.
We must hide our dark side from society in general, or we will be a bloody bore; but we must never try to hide it from ourself. True sainthood—or personal effectiveness—consists in standing at the center of the seesaw and producing only that which can be counterweighted with its opposite.
India balances Brahma, the god of creation, with Shiva, the god of destruction, and Vishnu sits in the middle keeping the opposites together.
The more refined our conscious personality, the more shadow we have built up on the other side.
(The gold in the shadow and the balance of opposites)
India has three terms describing this place of sainthood: sat, chit, ananda. Sat is the existential stuff of life (mostly the left side of the balance); chit is the ideal capacity (mostly the right side of the balance); ananda is the bliss, joy, ecstasy of enlightenment—the fulcrum of the seesaw. When sat and chit are paired together, and sufficiently conscious, then ananda, the joy of life, is created. This is won by owning one’s own shadow. If we act from the extreme right, we will knowingly or unknowingly have to balance this with some act from the left side. We do not even have to turn our head around to know that we have created an equally dark content.
We are also talking about sainthood in the original meaning of the word—a full-blooded embracing of our own humanity, not a one-sided goodness that has no vitality or life.
Dr. Jung often greeted a friend by asking, “Had any terrible successes lately?” because he also was aware of the close proximity of light and darkness.
The unconscious cannot tell the difference between a “real” act and a symbolic one.
Does this mean that I have to be as destructive as I am creative, as dark as I am light? Yes, but I have some control over how or where I will pay the dark price.
Western Christianity reveals its own imbalance by making one arm of the cross longer than the other. Since we accentuate the spiritual element of reality more than the earthy, feminine, and feeling elements, we unconsciously compensate for this by making the bottom arm of the cross larger than the other three. The Greek and Eastern Orthodox churches know better than this and have equal-armed crosses.
To refuse the dark side of one’s nature is to store up or accumulate the darkness; this is later expressed as a black mood, psychosomatic illness, or unconsciously inspired accidents.
We must be whole whether we like it or not; the only choice is whether we will incorporate the shadow consciously and with some dignity or do it through some neurotic behavior.
(Projection, the enemy, and shadow as the dark side of the psyche)
Unless we do conscious work on it, the shadow is almost always projected; that is, it is neatly laid on someone or something else so we do not have to take responsibility for it.
At times, the conscious observer in us stands back and says, “There but for the grace of God go I.” Jung used to say that we can be grateful for our enemies, for their darkness allows us to escape our own.
William Blake spoke about the need to reconcile these two parts of the self. He said we should go to heaven for form and to hell for energy—and marry the two.
There is a wonderful story about this that shows what happens when we stand back and do nothing—and allow the projection to run its course.
We are advised to love our enemies, but this is not possible when the inner enemy, our own shadow, is waiting to pounce and make the most of an incendiary situation. If we can learn to love the inner enemy, then there is a chance of loving—and redeeming—the outer one.
Love is the one word in our Western tradition adequate to describe this synthesis of ego and shadow.
Our hero-worshiping capacity is pure shadow; in this case our finest qualities are refused and laid on another. It is hard to understand, but we often refuse to bear our noble traits and instead find a shadow substitute for them. A fourteen-year-old boy hero-worships a sixteen year old and asks him to carry what the fourteen year old is not yet capable of doing; in a few months he has assimilated that capacity and is living what he relegated to shadow only shortly before.
Today’s hero is tomorrow’s character.
“You must understand, God loves your shadow much more than he does your ego!” I expected a thunderbolt from the skies or at least large objections from the audience. No word from anyone; but a later conversation with him brought elaboration of his comment: The ego is…primarily engaged in its own defense and the furtherance of its own ambitions. Everything that interferes with it must be repressed. The [repressed] elements…become the shadow. Often these are basically positive qualities. There are, in my view, two “shadows”: (1) the dark side of the ego, which is carefully hidden from itself and which the ego will not acknowledge unless forced to by life’s difficulties, and (2) that which has been repressed in us lest it interfere with our egocentricity and, however devilish it may seem, is basically connected to the Self. In a showdown God (Self] favors the shadow over the ego, for the shadow, with all of its dangerousness, is closer to the center and more genuine.
People are as frightened of their capacity for nobility as of their darkest sides. If you find the gold in someone he will resist it to the last ounce of his strength.
More often than not they will resist that process with all their energy. Or they may put that value on me instead of recognizing it as their own—as effective an evasion as refusing the quality. Beauty (or worth) is in the eyes of the beholder.
Two things go wrong if we project our shadow: First, we do damage to another by burdening him with our darkness—or light, for it is as heavy a burden to make someone play hero for us. Second, we sterilize ourselves by casting off our shadow. We then lose a chance to change and miss the fulcrum point, the ecstatic dimension of our own lives.
If you can touch your shadow—within form—and do something out of your ordinary pattern, a great deal of energy will flow from it. There is a curious fact based on this dynamic.
To our surprise, that middle ground is not the gray compromise that we feared but the place of ecstasy and joy.
Ancient China called this the Tao and said the middle way is not a compromise but a creative synthesis. One cannot stay very long in this middle place, for it is a knife-edge, outside space and time. A moment of it is enough to give meaning to long stretches of ordinary life.
First you must have the contents of both your ego and your shadow in your two hands—a difficult task to accomplish!
scale the best we can hope for is an endless contradiction. But if our consciousness is sufficient, we can synthesize these warring elements and come to the all-knowing eye at the central point. On the dollar bill, the eye is raised above the opposites to indicate its superior position.
“If thy eye be single, thy whole body shall be filled with light” (Matt. 6:22). The singleness of the eye, the center of the seesaw, is the place of enlightenment. This represents a whole new order of consciousness; the inscription on the dollar bill—“Novus Ordo Seclorum”—promises that new age.
(In-loveness as projected divinity; the descent to human love)
Projecting Our God Image To fall in love is to project that particularly golden part of one’s shadow, the image of God—whether masculine or feminine—onto another person. Instantly, that person is the carrier of everything sublime and holy. One waxes eloquent in praise of the beloved and uses the language of divinity. But this experience is from the extreme right-hand side of the seesaw and invariably constellates its opposite. When in-loveness turns into its opposite, there is nothing more bitter in human experience.
While in-loveness is close proximity to God, love based on reality serves our humble condition far better. Though no one notices at the time, in-loveness obliterates the humanity of the beloved. One does a curious kind of insult to another by falling in love with him, for we are really looking at our own projection of God, not at the other person.
Only when they come down to earth do they have to look at each other realistically and only then does the possibility of mature love exist.
A James Thurber cartoon sums up the stage of disillusionment: A middle-aged husband and wife confront one another with the words, “Well, who took the magic out of it?” True, when the projection of in-loveness is exhausted, the other side of reality—and the very dark possibilities in human exchange—take over. If we can survive this, then we have human love—far less exciting than divine love, but far more stable.
We forget that in falling in love, we must also come to terms with what we find annoying and distasteful—even downright intolerable—in the other and also in ourselves. Yet it is precisely this confrontation that leads to our greatest growth.
sprang up out of the Western collective unconscious and we discovered the art of seeing the godhead in another human being.
Ordinary human relations where we play out this divine drama are not of this magnitude.
No ordinary human container can ever survive the impact of 10,000 volts. Yet our culture prescribes this 10,000-volt experience as the basis for every marriage. When marriages survive, it is because both partners have moved down to the 110-volt human level and learned the art of loving. The 110-volt love is much more valuable and humanly assimilable than the extravagant pyrotechnics of the 10,000-volt display. Love, in its human proportions, is far more valuable than the leap-into-the-heavens experience of romance.
(Paradox over contradiction: the creative ground between opposites)
Paradox as Religious Experience When we consciously approach the shadow, we examine a very powerful aspect of our personality that is almost universally shunned and avoided. And in this way, we enter the realm of paradox.
Contradiction brings the crushing burden of meaninglessness. One can endure any suffering if it has meaning; but meaninglessness is unbearable. Contradiction is barren and destructive, yet paradox is creative. It is a powerful embracing of reality.
While contradiction is static and unproductive, paradox makes room for grace and mystery.
The quickest way I know to break a person is to give him or her two sets of contradicting values—which is exactly what we do, in modern culture, with our Sunday and Monday moralities. We are taught by Christianity to follow a set of values that are almost entirely disregarded in everyday business life. How is a person to cope?
the will of God is always singular and if you think there is a choice between any two alternatives you have not yet done your homework. When the issues are clear, it is absolutely apparent what one should do; there is no choice, for the mind of God is unified and knows no duality.
Every single virtue in this world is made valid by its opposite. Light would mean nothing without dark, masculine without feminine, care without abandon. Truths always come in pairs and one has to endure this to accord with reality.
To say that it is better to give than to receive is to indulge in the same kind of error that proves that 2 equals 3. To focus on one of a pair of opposites as “religious” is truly a mistake. It is only the realm of synthesis that is worthy of the adjective.
To engage in opposition is to be ground to bits by the insolubility of life’s problems and events. Most people spend their life energy supporting this warfare within themselves. One has only to listen to any candid conversation among friends to hear a recital of all the things that are going wrong for them. A huge amount of energy is wasted by modern people in opposing their own situation. Opposition is something like a short circuit; it also drains our energy away like a hemorrhage.
I am tempted to describe such a solution, but that would be misleading since every such solution has to grow from the unique situation that one faces. Formulas or devices are never enough at such a moment. The solution must rise from the dynamics of the opposing energies that are facing each other.
Isak Dinesen, the Danish author of Out of Africa, once wrote that there are three occasions for true happiness in human beings. The first is a surplus of energy. The second is the cessation of pain. The third is the absolute certainty that one is doing the will of God.
If one has progressed past the duality of life, one has come to the absolute certainty that one is doing the will of God.
This requires nothing less than taking our two lists of virtues and instead of entering a neurotic struggle that pits one against the other, allowing them the noble status of paradox. It is good to win; it is also good to lose. It is good to have; it is also good to give to the poor.
Let us not say that the opposites are antithetical but that they make up a divine reality that is accessible to us in our human condition.
To stay loyal to paradox is to earn the right to unity. Indeed, the most valuable experience of the Christian life is the unitive vision, that most treasured experience of mystical theology, which is won by surrendering to paradox.
If we stay with the paradox we will find that single eye that is beyond a quarrel and a compromise. We will find instead a unified attitude that marshals all our energy to a fine focus. This is worthy of the term enlightenment.
To own one’s own shadow is to prepare the ground for spiritual experience. Scripture and many stories tell us that the stuff of holiness is to be found in the most common places and events. This is a mythic statement that the pearl of great price is to be found in our everyday conflicts and tensions.
friend went to her hour with Dr. Meyer in Zurich who was famous for commenting with the single word “ja” to anything he was told.
Jung once said, “Find out what a person fears most and that is where he will develop next.” The ego is fashioned like the metal between the hammer and the anvil. This is for the brave and one does not easily find a moral or ethical nature strong enough for the process. Heroism could be redefined for our time as the ability to stand paradox. So, in practicality, what do you do? Just to ask that question takes you off center, for it makes you choose between doing and being. No glib solution will work.
Paradox is brought to its next stage of development by a highly conscious waiting. The ego can do no more; it must wait for that which is greater than itself.
Jung has said that to be in a situation where there is no way out, or to be in a conflict where there is no solution, is the classical beginning of the process of individuation.
Guilt is a total waste of time and energy.
Guilt is also a cheap substitute for paradox. The energy consumed by guilt would be far better invested in the courageous act of looking at two sets of truths that have collided in our personality. Guilt is also arrogant because it means we have taken sides in an issue and are sure that we are right. While this one-sidedness may be part of the cultural process, it is severely detrimental to the religious life.
think I have won (or superseded) some very serious spiritual debates in my inner life by giving credence to both sides, until a superior point of view could be achieved.
(The mandorla: alchemical union and the peacock’s tail)
Every glance between a man and a woman is also a mandorla, a place where the great opposites of masculinity and femininity meet and honor one another. The mandorla is the divine container in which a new creation begins to form and germinate. Scripture never tires of speaking about courtship and marriage as the symbol for our reconciliation with the spirit. Toni Sussman, a Jungian analyst in London and one of my early teachers, once told me that sex is the one symbol in dreams that is always creative.
The ancient alchemists understood this process. In alchemy one goes through four stages of development: the nigredo, in which one experiences the darkness and depression of life; the albedo, in which one sees the brightness of things; the rubedo, where one discovers passion; and finally the citrino, where one appreciates the goldenness of life. After all this comes a full-color mandorla. This is the pavanis, the peacock’s tail that contains all the preceding hues. One cannot stop this process until one has brought it to the pavanis, that concert of colors that contains everything. Wrongly done, the many colors of life produce a grayness, and all the colors neutralize each other into a dull monotony. Correctly done, the pavanis comes and all the colors of life make a magnificent and rich pattern. The mandorla is not the place of neutrality or compromise; it is the place of the peacock’s tail and rainbows. About the Author