The shadow is a moral problem that challenges the whole ego-personality, for no one can become conscious of the shadow without considerable moral effort. 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. Aion (1951). CW…
Good does not become better by being exaggerated, but worse, and a small evil becomes a big one through being disregarded and repressed. The shadow is very much a part of human nature, and it is only at night that no shadows exist. “A Psychological Approach to the Dogma of the Trinity” (1942) In CW…
From the earliest teachings of the Buddha, the practitioner has been encouraged to go against the stream of conventionality, to look at everything in experience including that which one would rather avoid or ignore. The way which the Buddha discovered was based on opening to all, including the “shadow,” to see fearlessly what is there,…
In reality, the acceptance of the shadow side of human nature verges on the impossible. Consider for a moment what it means to grant the right of existence to what is unreasonable, senseless, and evil! Yet it is just this that the modern man insists upon. He wants to live with every side of himself-to…
The shadow is not the whole of the unconscious personality. It represents unknown or little-known attributes and qualities of the ego . . . aspects that mostly belong to the personal sphere and that could just as well be conscious. Marie-Louise von Franz, “The Realization of the Shadow in Dreams,” in Meeting the Shadow…
n Jungian psychology, the shadow or “shadow aspect” is a part of the unconscious mind consisting of repressed weaknesses, shortcomings, and instincts. It is one of the three most recognizable archetypes, the others being the anima and animus and the persona. “Everyone carries a shadow,” Jung wrote, “and the less it is embodied in the…
Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is. At all counts, it forms an unconscious snag, thwarting our most well-meant intentions. — Carl Jung
In contrast to the meditation found in yoga practice, the psychoanalytic aim is to observe the shadowy presentation — whether in the form of images or of feelings — that are spontaneously evolved in the unconscious psyche and appear without his bidding to the man who looks within. In this way we find once more…
To confront a person with his shadow is to show him his own light. Once one has experienced a few times what it is like to stand judgingly between the opposites, one begins to understand what is meant by the self. Anyone who perceives his shadow and his light simultaneously sees himself from two sides…