However much others consider us attractive, intelligent, or competent, there is always something about ourselves that we don't like.

      Introverts wish they were more out-going. Extroverts envy the composure of introverts. Few are satisfied with their bodies.

      Some are unhappy with their impulsiveness. Others wish they could be more expressive, more spontaneous. Some would rather be less talkative, less self-revealing. Others wish they had the courage to speak their minds.

      What we don't like about ourselves is usually the opposite of what we admire in others. The irony is that these others are often envious of qualities we wish we didn't possess. We are attracted to those who are unlike us. We are more aware of our faults than our advantages, and we fail to appreciate that personal characteristics are never exclusively positive or negative. Strengths are shadowed by weaknesses and weaknesses by strengths. Vice is the underside of virtue. Hate is the flip-side of love. You can't have one without the other.

Demons

      It is important for us to explore our demons.

      There is more to us than even we are aware of. There are many splinter-personalities within. As Sam Keen warned, we are dangerous characters. Beneath what we know of ourselves, there are measureless, indefinable layers. These deeper dimensions of the self are virtually unknowable.¹ Jung put the matter even more graphically when he contended that conflicting impulses fight for supremacy in the cauldron of the psyche. The strife is often so [99] severe that people long for the sort of deliverance promised by theologians.²

      The demons of the unconscious give the lie to the image of ourselves that we present to others. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn commented that most people imagine that if we could separate the good from the bad, and destroy the bad, we could heal society. However, he argued that this would not solve the problem, because there is good and bad in us all, and no-one would want to destroy a part of their own heart?³

      Our demons threaten us because they appear to possess us. One of the most eloquent descriptions of this possession is found in Paul's confession in Romans 7, where the Apostle spoke of the conflict that raged within him between his desire to honour his highest ideals and another power that constantly aborted this intention. He confessed to being frequently at the mercy of his sinful nature.⁴

      Jung argued that possession resulted from the identification of the ego with a complex, a knot of repressed energy in the unconscious.⁵ Some, whose sexuality is repressed, may find, on occasions, that the repressed energy associated with their sexuality can take them over. It can become, at least for brief periods of time, the organising centre of their lives. There is sometimes an alternation between normal ego-centred behaviour and this alternative personality.

Sighting the demons

      The demons of the unconscious reveal themselves. We can identify them in characteristics we envy in others and in our immature reactions. They can be discerned in our negative judgements. What we don't like in ourselves, we criticise in others. This process is unconscious. Our demons are also obvious in our compulsions and in symptoms of dis-ease. Depression, as we have seen, may be a symptom of unresolved anger. However, it is in our dreams that our demons most clearly reveal themselves. [100]

A clearer picture

      Let me put these demons in context for you. This will require a brief review of Jung's view of human maturation.

      I should again stress that Jung's depiction of the human psyche is mythic, rather than literal. The elements he identifies are helpful interpretive devices, convenient shorthand notations.

      In infants and growing children the ego gradually emerges from its unconscious ground. The differentiation of the ego, an essential phase in human maturation, is a necessary preparation for the reconnection of the mature ego with the unconscious, a reconnection that is intentional, enlightening and life-enhancing.

      The process of reconnecting can be triggered in a number of ways. In healthy families, where love expresses itself in affection and in the establishing of responsible boundaries, it can be fostered by the cycle of ego inflation (tantrum), alienation (from the parents) and repentance (reconnecting with the parents). For many, whose childhood was unhappy or insufficiently nurturing, the ego's dialogue with the unconscious may occur later in life as a consequence of personal crises that have been positively managed and that lead to insights into the self. Some never make the reconnection.

      In the course of the ego's emergence, material is repressed into the unconscious, where it collects into knots of energy. These complexes, or demons of the unconscious, accost us unawares.

      The material that finds its way into the unconscious derives from a number of sources.

      There are potentialities that fail to emerge from the unconscious. In addition, the process of socialisation, the "civilising" of the young child,⁶ results in the repression of what is culturally unacceptable.

      Robert Bly argues that we are born as little balls of energy. When we are one or two years old our parents inform us that certain expressions of this energy are unacceptable. To ensure that we are loved and accepted, we toss what others find unacceptable into a bag we carry on our backs. We are told we should not be angry, so we put our anger in the bag. This bag is the shadow.⁷ [101]

      Psychological injury contributes to the chaos in the shadow. Conflict, generated by energies in the shadow, adds to the cocktail.

      Material in the shadow not only influences behaviour, it also affects our health.

      It also needs to be understood that we can become the victims of a collective, or communal shadow.

Identifying our demons

      There are several ways of identifying our demons.

      Flashes of recognition can accompany uncharacteristic behaviour. In these circumstances we ask: "Did I really do that?" Our demons are mirrored in bodily tone and posture.⁸ They can also manifest as archetypes, which surface in our dreams or reveal themselves in projections, that is, when we unknowingly criticise in others what we don't like about ourselves.

Archetypes

      Two of the more common archetypes are the shadow and the anima/animus.

      The shadow will often manifest in dreams as a shadowy, sometimes threatening and usually same-sex figure. We can also project aspects of the shadow onto others. We criticise in them what we don't like about ourselves.

      The anima is the feminine side of the man, and the animus is the masculine side of the woman. When the anima surfaces in dreams, it will usually manifest as a young girl, or woman. The anima in gays is often male.⁹ The woman's animus will generally present as a male.

      The anima may also manifest in real life. Men can project their animas onto women. They relate, not to the woman, but to that element of themselves that overlays their perception of the woman. Our partners, or wives, function as projection objects. Affairs are sometimes the consequence of anima projection.¹⁰

      The surfacing of the anima, during mid-life, may be a necessary facet of our development.¹¹ [102]

      The development of the animus in women appears to be more gradual than the development of the anima in man. It is often accelerated, however, during and after menopause, by a reduction in oestrogen. This reduction also increases the percentage of testosterone relative to other hormones.

      The development of "masculine" and "feminine" elements in men and women does not always follow an identifiable pattern. Allowance must be made for individual differences. Sheila Moon, a Jungian analyst, indicated that it was her masculine side that she had developed in her younger years. Her struggle, during mid-life, was to engage the feminine element.¹²

      Our dreams and projections will confront us with our demons. So too will our children. As Sam Keen explained, where parents have conformed, thoughtlessly, to inherited expectations, they pass on to their children, unconsciously, their unlived rebellion, which the children frequently act out.¹³

      Children are subjected to parental shadows that pervade the home. Children sometimes absorb these shadow energies and live them out.

      The shadow of a powerful leader can embrace a community, without that community being able to distinguish his weaknesses from his strengths. They become an extension of his shadow.

      This demonic energy can sometimes seep into immaterial objects, like houses. I have sensed a palpable evil in some homes. Jung commented that this energy is readily discerned, even by children.¹⁴ He further argued that the evil within us, of which we are unconscious, will insinuate itself into the environment, where it will find expression.¹⁵

Begone!

      When our demons grin in at the feast, or haunt our solitary moments, our first reaction is to try to convince ourselves that our minds are playing tricks on us. When this does not work, we either wish the demons away or try to exorcise them.

      Some, whose cosmology suggests that the demons are the minions of Satan, the arch-enemy of God, call on God to rescue [103] them. However, when the demons, which Jung argues are the conflicted energies of the unconscious, continue to haunt them, they are overtaken by guilt and blame themselves for their lack of faith. New Age enthusiasts, who fail in their attempts to rid themselves of their demons by changing the way they think, are caught in a similar dilemma.¹⁶ The demons will not go away.

Hold on!

      If we could rid ourselves of our demons, we would be diminished by their dismissal. Our demons are neglected, hurting parts of us. Unresolved anger and damaged sexuality need to be healed, not exorcised or banished.

      We need to acknowledge our demons and love them. They are parts of us. If we get close enough to slip their masks aside, we will find ourselves gazing into faces filled with pain, sadness and rejection. As James Broughton argued, to gain respite from our demons we must try to love them. If we are able to do this we will be surprised by what they will reveal to us.¹⁷ This is the aim of therapy--the integration of unconscious tendencies into the conscious mind.¹⁸

      In working on integrating our demons we are co-operating with the Spirit that is effecting the process. This is, as Morton Kelsey argued, one of the highest forms of prayer".¹⁹

      This process is cumulative and continuous. The journey into our shadow territory becomes an adventure in healing. This healing involves us learning to dance with our demons, to live with our sin--in the sense of taking its full measure.²⁰

      The embracing of our demons is the principal means by which we move towards wholeness. This wholeness requires the co-operation of our shadow, the ego's dark twin.²¹ Our weaknesses may be our last opportunities for redemption.²²

      This perspective underlies the archetypal psychologies of James Hillman and Thomas Moore.

The task

      We will never be totally integrated, totally whole. [104]

      Weaknesses will remain. But these weaknesses are a source of our energy and efficiency. They drive us. Our disharmony energises us as it seeks resolution, however perversely. As we withdraw our projections we become less efficient.²³ While it is important for us to lose some of our drivenness, to lose it altogether would diminish our contribution to society. The more awareness we possess the more we remove ourselves from schemes that are based on the illusion of reality or that are a reflection of the pathologies of those promoting them.²⁴ Furthermore, as Goethe argued, our weaknesses are one of the sources of our individuality.²⁵

      Wilber has argued that, in ascending the developmental ladder, we encounter a new range of pathologies at each stage. Once we begin to integrate the shadow at one level, we discover different shadow material, different facets of the self from which we are cut off, at the new level.²⁶

      Human existence is Janus-like. It is two-faced. Our vices are the flip-side of our virtues and our virtues of the reverse side of our vices. Our gift is our sin. Our sin is the pathological underside of our gift. If our gift is prophetic insight, this gift becomes our sin when we derive pleasure from making others squirm, from embarrassing them by showing them up. If we are driven by the need to be needed, the attention we give others can degenerate into flattery and manipulation.²⁷

      Jung argued that the dynamic forces associated with the unconscious are so inaccessible to our ordinary understanding that we are never sure what level of evil we may need to tolerate, within ourselves or society, for that evil to trigger a positive, reactive response that will totally reverse the dominance of evil over good.²⁸ Jung used the term enantiodromia, borrowed from Heraclitus, to describe the process whereby inherited tendencies suddenly yield to their opposites. An excess of evil brings on good. An excess of good brings on evil. Extreme secularism provokes faith. An excess of religious fervour precipitates scepticism. He explained that the Chinese were well aware of the fact that the end of one phase is the beginning of its opposite.²⁹ [105]

      If Jung is correct, then we should not fear our demons because that which is responsible for our greatest fear is, by this strange alchemy, the source of the greatest wisdom.³⁰ What we should fear is pretending they don't exist. This is our worst, our most debilitating sin. This pretence, this calculated amnesia, is indulged in by many who purport to be our teachers and mentors.³¹ [106]

[LS 99-106]