Me and My Shadow

Here's an excerpt from Rob Brezny's *PRONOIA IS THE ANTIDOTE FOR PARANOIA:
How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings*:

SHADOW SCHOOL

You're a gorgeous mystery with a wild heart and a lofty purpose. But like
all of us, your psyche also harbors a portion of the world's sickness: a
mess of repressed longings, enervating wounds, ignorant delusions, and
unripe powers. It has been known by many names, including demon and
devil. Psychologist Carl Jung called it the shadow. He believed it was the
lead that the authentic alchemists of the Middle Ages sought to
transmute into gold.

*

"I am superior to you only in one point," Narcissus tells Goldmund in
Hermann Hesse's novel Narcissus and Goldmund. "I'm awake, whereas you
are only half awake, or completely asleep sometimes. I call a man awake
who knows in his conscious reason his innermost unreasonable force,
drives, and weaknesses, and knows how to deal with them."

*

Astrologer Steven Forrest has a different name for the shadow: stuff.
"Work on your stuff," he says, "or your stuff will work on you." He means
that it will sabotage you if you're not aggressive about identifying,
negotiating with, and transforming it.

*

"You have to recognize the demons or else they'll annoy you like
mosquitoes. But if you acknowledge their existence, if you say, 'All right,
here's a cookie, go sit in the corner,' then you can go about your work
and you don't have to go into depression because of it." --James
Broughton, as told to interviewer Jack Foley in The Alsop Review, "Big
Joy: Octogenarian--An Interview with James Broughton,"
http://tinyurl.com/k4ech

*

"The unconscious sends all sorts of vapors, odd beings, terrors, and
deluding images up into the mind; for the human kingdom, beneath the
floor of the comparatively neat little dwelling that we call our
consciousness, goes down into unsuspected Aladdin caves. There not
only jewels but also dangerous jinn abide: the inconvenient or resisted
psychological powers that we have not thought or dared to integrate into
our lives." --Joseph Campbell, *The Hero With a Thousand Faces*

*

The shadow is not inherently evil. If it is ignored or denied, it may become
monstrous to compensate. Only then is it likely to "demonically possess"
its owner, leading to compulsive, exaggerated, "evil" behavior.

*

"Whatever is rejected from the self, appears in the world as an event,"
said Jung. If you disown a part of your personality, it'll materialize as an
unexpected detour.

Everyone who believes in the devil is the devil.

*

"Nothing determines who we will become so much as those things we
choose to ignore." --Sandor McNab

*

"There is no generally effective technique for assimilating the shadow. It
is more like diplomacy and is always an individual matter. First one has to
accept and take seriously the existence of the shadow. Second, one has
to become aware of its qualities and intentions. This happens through
conscientious attention to moods, fantasies, and impulses. Third, a long
process of negotiation is unavoidable." --Daryl Sharp, Jung Lexicon: A
Primer of Terms and Concepts; also available at http://tinyurl.com/znxn3

*

"The shadow is not only the dark underside of the personality. While much
of it consists of inferior, primitive, unadapted, and awkward qualities, it
also contains vitalizing instincts, sleeping abilities, and positive moral
qualities that have long been buried or never been conscious. These
unacknowledged personal characteristics are often seen or hallucinated in
others through the mechanism of projection." --Daryl Sharp, Jung Lexicon:
A Primer of Terms and Concepts; also available at
http://tinyurl.com/znxn3

*

"The best political, social, and spiritual work we can do is to withdraw the
projection of our shadow onto others." --Carl Jung

*

"Suffering can't be avoided," James Broughton told Jack Foley. "The way
to happiness is to go into the darkness of yourself. That's the place the
seed is nourished, takes its roots and grows up, and becomes ultimately
the plant and the flower. You can only go upward by first going
downward." --James Broughton, as told to interviewer Jack Foley in The
Alsop Review, "Big Joy: Octogenarian--An Interview with James
Broughton," http://tinyurl.com/k4ech

*

The alchemists said the magic formula for enlightenment was Visita
Inferiora Terrae Rectificando Invenies Occultum Lapidem, or "Seek out the
lower reaches of the earth, perfect them, and you will find the hidden
stone" (the treasured Philosopher's Stone). Jungian psychologists might
describe the process this way: Find the ignorant, wounded parts of your
psyche, perfect them, and you will awaken your hidden divinity.

*

"The great epochs in our lives are at the points when we gain the courage
to rebaptize our badness as the best in us." --Friedrich Nietzsche

*

In the best-known version of the Greek myth, Persephone is dragged
down into the underworld by Hades, whose title is "Pluto." But in earlier,
pre-patriarchal tales, she descends there under her own power, actively
seeking to graduate from her virginal naiveté by exploring the intriguing
land of shadows.

"Pluto" is derived from the Greek word plutus, meaning "wealth."
Psychologist James Hillman says this refers to the psyche-building riches
available in Pluto's domain. Hades, he says, is "the giver of nourishment to
the soul."

*

The goddess Hecate also lives in the underworld. According to poet
Robert Graves, she is the mistress of sorcery, "the goddess of ghosts and
night-terrors, of phantoms and fearful monsters." On the other hand, he
notes, Hecate "presides at seed time and childbirth; she grants
prosperity, victory, plentiful harvests to the farmer and rich catches to
the fisherman."

How can a single deity embody such seemingly contradictory archetypes?
Graves: She symbolizes "the unconscious in which beasts and monsters
swarm. This is not the living hell of the psychotic, but a reservoir of
energy to be brought under control, just as Chaos was brought to cosmic
order under the influence of the spirit."

*

In the New World, it won't be your material wealth that will win you the
most bragging points. Nor will it be the important people you know or the
deals you've swung or the knowledge you've amassed or your mate's
attractiveness. What will bring you most prestige and praise in the
civilization to come will be your success in transmuting lead into gold--
how thoroughly you have integrated your shadow and tapped into its
resources.

*

Here's a corollary to Jesus's injunction to love thy neighbor as thyself: "I
will love the dark, difficult side of my neighbor--not just the attractive,
friendly side--and I will encourage it to express itself in constructive
ways."

*

"If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere
insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate
them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and
evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to
destroy a piece of his own heart?"
--Alexander Solzhenitsyn, *The Gulag Archipelago*

*

Ancient legend says that a giant cobra--normally a fearsome predator--
shielded Buddha with its expansive hood as he meditated in the wilderness
during a terrible week-long storm.


++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Brezny's book is available for sale at http://tinyurl.com/qaj62