Tags: [[Jungian psychology]] James Hollis has a good explanation of Jung's concept of the Shadow, from [[Living Between Worlds]]: > The Shadow represents those elements, energies, and agendas in us or in our affiliative associations that, when brought to consciousness, contradict our professed values. The Shadow is not evil, per se, though much evil derives from it; rather, the Shadow embodies the contrarian dimensions of our souls. Put most succinctly, what is wrong in the world is wrong in us as well. As the Latin playwright Terence wrote over two millennia ago, “Nothing human is alien to me.” So, the work of improving the world begins in my own backyard. > > The Shadow manifests in four interactive fields. First, it is most commonly unconscious and therefore spills into the world, into our relationships, onto our children unconsciously. We only become aware of Shadow infiltrations when we have to start dealing with their consequences. Second, we can disown our Shadow by seeing it in others—the person I blame, the people across that geophysical border, those with a different religion or pigmentation or cultural form. All of bigotry, prejudice, and war comes from such projection. Third, I can become possessed by the Shadow and swept along by its powerful energy. We can revel in our violence, our dangerous habits and behaviors. We can flaunt the norms like adolescents and smile while doing it. Last, we can become conscious of our Shadow; that is when the real work begins. As Stephen Dunn ruefully concluded, “The good news is I know who I am; that’s the bad news too.” > > In 1937, while speaking at Yale, Jung spoke of what happens to a person who takes on the Shadow. Such a person, he says, >> "has become a serious problem to himself, as he is now unable to say that they do this or that, they are wrong, and they must be fought against. . . . Such a man knows that what 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. . . . How can anyone see straight when he does not even see himself and the darkness he unconsciously carries with him into all his dealings."