“When we react intensely … this may be our shadow showing.”
The Shadow Archetype in the collective unconscious was proposed by C. G. Jung who says “The shadow is a moral problem that challenges the whole ego-personality. … To become conscious of it involves recognizing the dark aspects of the personality as present and real. This act is the essential condition for any kind of self-knowledge and it therefore, as a rule, meets with considerable resistance.”[i]
An example of the shadow is The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886) by Robert Louis Stevenson. It was written before the science of psychology could explain the psychotic behavior of an apparently “religious” man. “We must assume that Jekyll’s devotion to religion means he went through formal religious observances, perhaps joining a Church of some kind. We know, of course, that Jekyll’s religion is not sincere. He knows nothing of God but is hoping to find, in formalized religion and in his own religious pretensions, a defense against being overcome by Hyde.”[ii]
“No doubt many of us today are using religion in this way, especially those religious creeds that decry man’s sins, threaten the sinful man with punishment, and encourage good deeds as a sign of salvation. This kind of religion tends to draw as members those persons who are consciously or unconsciously struggling to hold in check their shadow personalities.”[iii]
Insight # 65 comes to us from educator Elizabeth Lesser, a co-founder of the Omega Institute (1977). Omega is recognized internationally for its workshops and conferences in health, wellness, spirituality, creativity and social change.
“We see the shadow most directly in distasteful traits and actions of other people, out there where it is safer to observe it. We project by attributing this quality to the other person in an unconscious effort to banish it from ourselves, to keep ourselves from seeing it within. When we react intensely to a quality in an individual or group—such as laziness or stupidity, sensuality, or spirituality—and our reaction overtakes us with great loathing or admiration, this may be our shadow showing.”[iv]
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Additional Reading:
- The Shadow, The ABC’s of Simple Reality, Vol 2
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[i] Jung, C. G. The Portable Jung, edited by Joseph Campbell, Penguin Books, 1976, p. 145.
[ii] Zweig, Connie and Jeremiah Abrams. Meeting the Shadow: The Hidden Power of the Dark Side of Human Nature. Los Angeles: Jeremy P. Tarcher, Inc., 1991, p. 228.
[iii] Ibid.
[iv] Ibid, p. xviii.
