“Shame, guilt, pride, fear, hatred, envy, neediness and greed are inevitable by-products of ego building. They encourage the polarity between the feeling of inferiority and the will to power. They are the shadow aspects of the first emancipation of the ego.”
Edward C. Whitmont
We all have a mask, which is the image we pass on to the world. In astrology we call it the ascendant, which is how people see us, it is our impulse, the personality acquired through life and through which we transmit the best we have. It's called persona in psychology and it's how we would like everyone to recognize us. For example, in superficial dating we put our persona on, while in a deeper relationship we end up showing our shadow.
We make our self split into three parts:
- o "I lost" – everything we repress to please “others”;
- o "false me" – the image we create to please “others”;
- o “I denied” – the part that “the others” have taught us to be negative and therefore is denied. Examples are: selfishness, anger, sexual desires (repressed), revenge, “past mistakes”, guilt (which creates nothing), betrayal, falsehood, desire for power, lies, our fights with God/Goddess, “sins”, shame, &c.
You are likely to have most of these characteristics and more. And it's not just you. All are like that. Recognize this. Jung knew that the shadow is dangerous when not recognized, because we project our destructive aspects on the world and on others and we are entirely slaves to it until it dominates our mind and we start to pulsate only hatred, sadness, judgments, pain, complaints, etc.
We begin to see flaws in all people, we judge and see the shadow of our neighbor, of the religion that is not ours, of another culture, but we do not see our shadow.
Many of the "spiritual" or "religious" wars happen for exactly this reason. We see darkness in everything and that darkness is a projection of what we have inside. Impulsive acts that later generate regret. Situations in which others are humiliated. Exaggerated anger at the mistakes of others. Depression when looking inward.
Francis of Assisi was both shadow and light, but he chose the path of light; Hitler was both shadow and light, but he chose the path of shadow. Hitler had Francis' seed, but Hitler became Hitler. Francis had the seed of Hitler, but he became Francis. Francisco worked his shadow and became a master, who is an icon of compassion, tolerance and love of life. This is a lifelong work, and as a reward, it allows us to forgive others and ourselves for what we feel is wrong, as compassion and tolerance begin with us and spread to others.
The shadow is very primitive. It comes from a remote past, since, perhaps, the emergence of hominids. It is in our mind and body and is also called memes. In the book “The Selfish Gene”, Richard Dawkins says that memes are “nuclei of information or energy that have a life of their own, radiate commands, instructions, cultural programs and social norms to people” and are transmitted through culture, gossip, religion, books, movies and everything that contributes to increasing our individual and cultural shadow. Gossip is perhaps one of the worst memes – the inside gossip, the outside gossip.
The meme is something so powerful that it radiates its influence from one mind to another almost instantly. That's how ideas spread. As genes are to genetics, memes are to memetics. And just as DNA is the biological replicated, the meme is the cultural replicated. Dark and limited ideas can be taught by the school (which also has a dark side):
The Philadelphia Inquirer of June 11, 1988 reported:
The Soviet Union, declaring that history textbooks taught generations of Soviet children lies that poisoned their "minds and souls", yesterday announced the cancellation of final history exams for more than 53 million students. In announcing the cancellation, the official newspaper Isvestia reported that the extraordinary decision was aimed at putting an end to the transmission of lies from one generation to the next, a process that consolidated the Stalinist political and economic system that the current leadership intends to end. “The guilt of those who have deluded one generation after another… is immeasurable,” the paper declares in a front-page commentary. “Today we are reaping the bitter fruits of our own moral laxity. We are paying for having succumbed to conformism and thus giving our silent approval to everything that today fills us with shame and that we cannot honestly explain to our children.”
So when we think we have an idea, it's actually the ideas that have us. I make this statement so that you understand that we are often hosts of ideas, opinions or beliefs that are not always beneficial to us, but advantageous to themselves. And so they come to form our shadow. The more happiness and creativity we acquire in life, the more the shadow grows. The more light, the more shadow and darkness. All the geniuses of humanity had very strong shadows. The more luminous the conscious personality, the greater the shadow. So don't cast your shadow on another. Realize these projections, a limitation of you.
Recognize your shadow and start to free yourself from it.
