Welcome to episode 5 of the series Introduction
to Carl Gustav Jung.
I'm David Bell, and this is a 6senses.nz night
school programme.
In this episode we look at what Jung meant
by the term 'the shadow' from a Christian
perspective.
It follows on from the last episode where
we considered archetypes.
One such archetype is the risen Christ who
is the Saviour.
There is also the opposite archetype, Satan
who is the Tempter.
So what do these archetypes tell us, how do
they speak to us?
They are images within the collective unconscious.
That is part of our own unconscious inner
world.
What we admire in others is what we unconsciously
admire in ourselves.
We project this out onto others in the external
world.
Jung notes that what we revile in others is
also a projection.
It's from our shadow side.
This shadow is hidden to us but it is in us.
How does that work?
We need to accept the existence of both the
Christ within and the Tempter within.
Christ is not an external Saviour but is within
us.
Satan is not an external Tempter but is within
us.
Satan is part our shadow.
Wholeness and healing and integration of the
personality come through working with our
shadow.
Jung observed how hard it is for an individual
to accept the shadow within.
It's also almost impossible for us ever to
directly see our shadow.
Instead we feel its effects.
We see it only indirectly.
Besides the archetypal images there are other
aspects to our personality that must also
be worked on.
This is very challenging to some Christian
people.
Why? Because they find it much easier to believe
only in the conscious world.
Often they convey an impression of religious
certainty, 100% confident in their faith.
They project an air of absolute certainty
about the Bible and their faith.
They have created a mask which they project
onto the world.
All of us do this.
We have to adjust to differing social contexts
and we use differing masks to do this.
Jung called the masks our persona.
Others do not see us as we really are.
Rather they see the persona our ego creates
and projects.
A different version of us exists behind our
persona.
This is no better illustrated than by Jesus
calling the pharisees 'hypocrites.
That, of course is the Greek word for actors.
The actors in a play put on masks or project
persona.
We consciously project what we want others
to see in us.
Equally we unconsciously project onto others
what we do not see in ourselves.
How important it is for better daily living
if we can understand this.
Jung noted that real growth happens when we
make this discovery.
It is often precipitated by what's popularly
called the mid-life crisis.
Listen to what Jung says quote.
Among all my patients in the second half of
life
- that is to say over thirty-five -
there has been not one whose problem in the
last resort
was not that of finding a religious outlook
on life.
It is safe to say that
everyone of them fell ill because he had lost
that
which the living religions of every age have
given to their followers,
and none of them has been really healed who
did not regain his religious outlook.
This of course has nothing to do with a particular
creed or membership of a church. Unquote.
He wrote that in the classic Modern Man in
Search of a Soul.
The shadow is all part of our personality
type.
Loosely paraphrasing Jung,from a letter he
wrote to a priest.
Suppose someone starts to wake up to the forces
at work in his or her psyche,
there is almost instantly a confrontation
with the shadow.
What follows is a moment of decision.
You have to stake your soul on a decision
for the good.
It helps you become a real individual who
has found him or herself.
Jung called this individuation
And you have to learn to discriminate between
yourself and the shadow.
In all of this process the Good is the goal
of individuation.
Christ represents the self as you work through
it.
Jung also says we have to deal with the Shadow
or risk being devoured by it.
He cautions that the only way to deal with
it is to cling to the Good.
This is not a fundamentalist reading of the
devil who is 'out there'.
Satan belongs in the personal inner world
of the psyche.
This is where the demons inside us must be
confronted for the personality to be made
whole.
But there is a caveat.
As Jung himself once noted, in all his dreams
he felt he had only once glimpsed his shadow.
We feel the effects of the shadow but it
is like our blind spot.
We can't see the blind spot, don't see the
blind spot.
Most of us can't see the shadow.
One final point about this.
In the collective unconscious it is not only
individuals who project shadows.
Entire nations can do it.
The current wars of religion are proof enough.
Isis demonizes the west and the infidels.
It also demonizes anyone from Islam who challenges
it.
Yet we are just as likely to project our demons
onto Isis.
There is an urgent need I suggest for all
of us to cling to the good as we fight personal
and collective demons.
I hope you found this video helpful.
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Join me again next week when we look at Dreams
in Practical Theology
