I have argued that human maturation involves a two phase development, a flourishing of God-given capacities and a self-emptying. I have also contended that the transition from the first to the second phase, which is not once and for all, but episodic, involves an integration of the unconscious, of the shadow side of the self, into that aspect of ourselves of which we are conscious.

I have traced this development in detail elsewhere. In this chapter I will briefly recap the argument.

The Unconscious

I will begin by re-emphasizing the fact that the unconscious is the repository of many things. Jung argued that there is both a personal and a collective unconscious. The personal unconscious contains material that has not differentiated itself out of the unconscious matrix from which the embryonic ego emerged, as well as elements of our human potential that are undeveloped because they are culturally unacceptable and painful experiences that have been repressed. The collective unconscious is composed of human commonalities, communal energies that we experience and residues from a past that predates our existence.¹

Archetypes

Jung argued that the material in the unconscious constellates around what he called archetypes, the most commonly identified being the shadow, the anima and the animus. Our concern in this chapter will be with the shadow.

The Shadow

As indicated in an earlier chapter, the expression, "the Shadow", is used in two ways in the writings of those influenced by Jung, one general and the other specific. I will sometimes refer to the unconscious itself as "the shadow side of our reality". On the other hand, when Jung spoke of "the Shadow" he was alluding to a specific archetype. These two usages, however, are interconnected. For instance, the Shadow and the male Anima are closely connected, particularly where repression has involved "feminine" elements of the male psyche.

The shadow, as a specific archetype, often surfaces in dreams, usually as vaguely defined same-sex personalities that are sometimes menacing. It is made up of repressed elements of one's personality, or life narrative, as well as elements from the collective unconscious.² [102]

Repression

When material is repressed it doesn't disappear, but is merely hidden. The fact that it is repressed means that we have lost control of that part

of ourselves. However, the self, of which the conscious ego and the unconscious are elements, correct this imbalance by causing what is repressed to manifest, usually in an uncontrolled or destructive fashion.

This happens in different ways.

Repressed material can gas out or erupt. Repressed anger, transmuted into aggression, can escape into sarcastic asides, or it can explode into uncontrollable rage.

Material in the shadow can also constellate into alternative centres of consciousness, hubs of energy Jung called complexes, and momentarily take us over. These complexes can influence us by controlling the ego, as a power behind the throne. The Apostle Paul, referring to personal experience, spoke of this phenomenon as an energy within his being over which he had no control, in spite of his considerable will-power.³ These rival centres of consciousness can alternate with the ego, as the control centre, in a drama reminiscent of R.L. Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. This oscillation may eventuate in a permanent usurpation, or palace insurrection, on the part of shadow energies, which relegate the ego to the shadow.

More often than not, however, we deal with repressed material by projecting it. We project what we do not like about ourselves onto others. In criticising individuals external to us, we are criticising, in them, what we do not like about ourselves.

Material from the unconscious also surfaces in our dreams.

The problem with repression, and particularly with projection, is that we give away, project onto others, an essential part of ourselves. To be whole, we need to re-own, reclaim and love that part of ourselves that we have projected. Part of what we repress is what Robert Johnson calls "our gold",⁴ the potential we have for fulfilment and for benefiting others. It also needs to be recognized that even that within ourselves which we despise is merely the perversion of what is essentially good.

The Shadow and Human Sinfulness

We must next ask, what relationship the shadow side of our reality has to sin?

The most straightforward answer to this question would be that sin is largely generated by distortions in the unconscious that influence thought and behaviour. This in consistent with Jesus comment that sin arises from the heart, from within,⁵ and with Paul's confession that there was a perverse authority within that took him over despite himself.⁶ At base, our destructive behaviour is a consequence of our inability to flow with the [104] immanent presence of a transcendent God, whose intent is to mature us and shape us into her likeness.

Zoroastrian Dualism

From the period of the Babylonian exile onwards, the Jews, influenced by Zoroastrian dualism, began reworking their response to the question of the origin of suffering. They made use of a newly acquired belief in a world of angels and demons, attributing sin, or evil, to demonic possession.

The Demonic

While our current Western world view does not accommodates belief in demons, we should be careful not to dismiss the phenomena these mythological figures identified. There are personal and corporate phenomena that can be described as "demonic."

If we feel negatively towards someone, or if we are angry and withdrawn, others sense our mood. They can identify it from our asides, our body language, or from the feel of the atmosphere surrounding us. We pollute our common space. Then again, the unconscious sometimes erupts, when one or a number of personalities, personalities that have formed from the repressed material in the unconscious, surface. Some describe this experience as possession. It is also possible to be so contaminated by another person's shadow that we assume it as a personality and live it vicariously for them. Children sometimes do this with parental shadows. It is interesting to note that one study discovered that a high percentage of German terrorists were the children of Protestant ministers!

The community, like the individual, also has a shadow side.

The demonic is evident at the communal level in a range of phenomena. These include group think and the build-up and explosion of negative energy, leading to mob hysteria, violence and murder. The demonic was also manifest in the seductive oratory of Adolph Hitler. Associated with repressed sexual energy, the demonic also surfaced in voyeuristic comment in the writings of some of the early Church Fathers, and in the Middle Ages and in Puritan America in witch hunts. The emergence of elements of the archaic unconscious, another dimension of the demonic, was evident, during Hitler's rise to power, in the Phoenix-like resurrection of Wotan, the ancient Germanic god, who had been relegated to the unconscious of the national psyche. As the thin veneer of civilization began to crack, Wotan emerged in the dreams of the people and in the mythology of the Third Reich.⁷ Shadow projections, reflected in sexism, classism, racism, have become institutionalised in social and political structures that enshrine them. This institutional evil, a further instance of the demonic, perpetuates alienation, inhumanity and violence and renders its victims impotent. [105]

Self-Healing

We are fortunate, however, that we have been so structured that self-healing is built into our psyches, as it is into our bodies. The unconscious, when we learn to pay attention to it, will not merely diagnose our psychological/spiritual illness, but will indicate to us what we need to do to participate in our healing. The more we journey within, the more we discover the God who is our ground and the foundation of our healing and development and the more we realize that it is Love that holds us in existence.

The difficulty is having the courage to face ourselves. Only love, the experience of an accepting, forgiving, non-judgmental love, can enable us to do this. This love not only helps us face ourselves, but also facilitates the process of integrating the unconscious into the conscious.

Love

Love is experienced in the strong, but non-possessive love of parents or significant others, who give us permission and space to be ourselves, who provide boundaries, against which we exert ourselves in order to become individuals. It is also evident in those who uniquely incarnate this love. However, for many, a lack of familiarity with love prevents them from beginning the inward journey and is unavailable to them to sustain their progress.

Jesus

What Karl Jaspers called the axial period of human history⁸ saw the development of what are now the world's major religions. It witnessed the birth of Jesus Christ, who uniquely incarnated the Love that effects our transformation.

Jesus encouraged those he encountered to acknowledge their shadow reality, but in such a way that they could respond without capitulation. His gentle, non-judgmental approach, which did not involve a loss of face, resulted in true repentance. It was his acceptance of people, in his loving of them, that helped them face themselves. It changed them.

Different people responded to Jesus differently. The pariahs, the publicans and prostitutes, had no image to preserve. They had no difficulty acknowledging their faults. In accepting them, Jesus transformed them. This was evident in the reaction of Zacchaeus the moment Jesus publicly identified himself with the tax collector by inviting himself for a meal. [106]

The Pharisees reacted differently. To maintain an illusion of purity, they repressed and projected what they didn't like about themselves. They criticised in others what they couldn't tolerate or admit to in themselves.

There were at least two different sorts of responses to Jesus among the Pharisees. There were those like Paul in his pre-conversion days, who, because of the compulsive intensity of his quest for acceptance from God, repressed knowledge of his other self, a self that, nevertheless, came back to haunt him in reflective moments. There were others, quite different to Paul, who blocked acknowledgment of their shadowed selves by denial or distraction, because such acknowledgment threatened their status, privilege or power.

Because the only way they could be healed was for them to confront what they had repressed and begin the process of re-integrating it, Jesus continued to confront them. To have done otherwise would have been to have given up on them and to have been untrue to himself.

The Woman Taken in Adultery

The scene in which Jesus was confronted by Jewish leaders with a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery, a circumstance designed to trick him into incriminating himself, beautifully illustrates his approach.⁹

In this encounter Jesus forced the woman's accusers to lift from her the shadow material they had projected onto her. They were not comfortable with the strength of their sexuality and the fact that it was sometimes uncontrollable. They projected their discomfort with themselves onto this woman in a vicious exercise in scapegoating.

The Pharisees and doctors of the law, to be healed, needed to confront, own and integrate their shadows. So Jesus handed them back to them. The woman needed to be released from the weight of their imprisoning projections that kept her trapped in a lifestyle that was destructive. Jesus, by asking each of her accusers to identify and take back their shadows, removed this accumulated weight from the woman and freed her. Also, in accepting her, he returned her gold, her belief in herself and a confidence that the future could be different. He said, in effect, there is no longer need for you to live as you have lived in the past, living out, living vicariously, the shadows of those who have used you. You do not have to live this way any more. Go and sin no more.

An Irritant

In the early days of his ministry Jesus was gentle and patient with the Pharisees, despite the fact that they were reluctant to own their inner distortions, which he kept handing back to them after lifting them from those they were scapegoating. [107]

In time, motivated by the need to be seen to be righteous, or by the desire to retain power, they became increasingly angry with him. Rather than accepting, owning and integrating the returned shadows, they threw them back at him. He is a drunkard and mixes with the wrong people,¹⁰ said the moralistic Pharisees. This was classic shadow projection that revealed far more about the Pharisees than it did about Jesus. The secret, repressed desire of the Pharisees to be released from the need to be good was clearly evident in their criticism of Jesus.

Jesus was unwilling to be scapegoated. He knew that if the Jewish leaders were to be healed, and were to be capable of giving effective guidance to the people, they would need to confront and own their shadow projections.

It is little wonder, that, over time, opposition to Jesus from the Pharisees, Sadducees and Herodians increased.

At the same time as he was dealing in this way with the political and religious leaders, Jesus was returning to the common people the gold they had projected onto those they admired. Many were wanting him to live their gold vicariously. Jesus refused to do this. As long as he carried their gold, they could not be healed.

It was obvious that the authorities were pushed by Jesus beyond what they were able to tolerate. It is little wonder that they decided to be rid of him. The comment, that Jesus' bore our sins in his own body on the cross,¹¹ takes on a different perspective when seen in the light of his unwillingness to compromise his loving of the common people and of the leaders by pulling back on his re-presentation to them of their shadow material.

In handing them back material from their shadows, Jesus presented people with a gift, because, without accepting this material and working with it, they could not become whole. Superficial behavioural change does not alter inner structures, though it may ease tension in social relationships. It is only as the core of who we are becomes integrated, that real change occurs. Others can tell the difference between someone who has cultivated a pleasant persona and someone who can offer others heart hospitality and healing.

Identifying with the poor, and accepting their brief, led Jesus to accuse the Jewish leaders of discrimination and injustice. This involved his drawing attention to characteristics they preferred to keep hidden. This action politicised his ministry. His death, therefore, was the inevitable political consequence of the way he lived.

In the first Christian sermon, following Jesus resurrection, Peter, newly sensitized by Jesus forgiveness of his betrayal, and motivated by the implosion within of a Spirit-gifted love, re-presented to the Jews their [108] shadow material with the challenge, This Jesus, given up to you by the deliberate will of God, you crucified and killed.¹²

What Ritual Sacrifice Could Not Do

Through his life, teaching and death, Jesus did what the Jewish sacrifices had been unable to do.

The Jewish sacrificial system had its origin in a broader mythology of sacrifice common to the cultures of the Fertile Crescent. The Israelites adopted the practice of sacrifice to encourage their sky God, Yahweh, to forgive their sin. The moralism of the Hebrew tradition, reinforced by prophetic denunciation, induced a deep sense of guilt. The sacrifices were intended to wipe the slate clean.

At the psychological level, however, the sacrificial system was a ritualization of the process of projection. It was the institutionalization of a very human response to guilt. This exercise in projection was helpful, but only up to a point. It did not deal with the split within that generated perverse behaviours. It provided for the gassing out of guilt-ridden energies, but it did not heal that distortions that produced this powerful negative effluent.

Jesus, on the other hand, by confronting us with our shadow material, with the ground of our sinfulness, and by helping us to begin integrating what had been repressed by convincing us that God accepted us in our totality, effectively began in us a process of radical transformation.

Jesus incarnated the love that sources our being and our maturation. Jesus helps us appreciate that we are loved by God and makes it possible for us to accept his acceptance of us.

Cumulative Healing

God's healing of us, through a love that was uniquely manifest in Christ, is cumulative. We are taken by the hand and led down the darkening steps into the upper layers of the unconscious. He takes in the vista before him and encourages us to do the same. Once we have overcome our fear of what we will find, we look up and our eyes alight upon features that change as we continue to look at them. His gaze heals distortions. Emboldened, we no longer draw back as strongly, as he leads us further down the stairwell. The further we go the more confidence we gain and the more we recognize in these labyrinthine passages the essence that is more truly us than the smiling persona we present to the world.

Ken Wilber, in No Boundary, has argued that the human shadow includes aspects, additional to that on which Jung focused, the shadow brother/ sister to the ego, the shadow of the egoic level. At the level of the self, it is the body that is alienated and needs to be reclaimed. At the level of the [109] body-self, it is our connectedness with others, with the eco-system, with the whole universe, from which we see ourselves as separated, that needs to be recognised and reintegrated. The integration that is fostered by the Spirit of God includes shadow material at each of these levels.¹³

A Work of Grace

The Grace that we have known, insubstantially, in our reflective moments, has, in Christ, brought us full circle.

In the early stages of our developing individuation the shadow archetype began filling with repressed material and began separating from the conscious to the degree that we became vaguely aware of a primordial split within us. Christ effectively facilitates the reverse process of reintegration and a reconnection with others, with our environment and with God.

As a result of the change that the love manifest in Christ effects in us we discover that our most basic relational needs for self-acceptance, self-esteem and security are on the way to being met and we no longer feel the same need to control ourselves, others or God. We have a sense of place, a sense of being rooted in God.

We also experience a new connection with our feelings and our bodies and find a freedom from the unpredictable demons of the unconscious, a freedom to flow with Grace in the direction of our humanity and our healing. We release the deep freedom, the freedom to say yes or no to God, that is the foundation of our humanity and its fulfilment.

We also discover a capacity for healthy self-denial and a freedom and an ability to attend to others, where the two principal gifts we are able to offer them are our knowledge of ourselves and the embracing love of God manifest in Christ. An understanding of the way Jesus lived, and the manner in which he dealt with people, gives us insight into the essence of the biblical concept of holiness.

A Different Type of Holiness

We have most frequently conceived of holiness, either as a negative abstention from evil or as the imposition of a super-spirituality. However, holiness does not consist in our presenting a sanitised religious persona to the world, but in living who we are with honesty and integrity. While it is important for us to live truly who we are with integrity, we should not stop there. It is important for us to be increasing our capacity to live our full potential, that is, to live, not only with integrity, but in a manner that reflects our commitment to an increasing integration of the separate and sometimes warring aspects of our selves. [110]

It is when we are aware of the immanent grace that is fostering this integration, and when we are committed to the long and difficult task of acknowledging and loving the shadow aspect of the self, that we realize that we are on the way to a more comprehensive holiness.

The further we progress, the more we realize that the whole phenomenon is ultimately a work of grace and the less we are concerned about being holy! We long to be ourselves, free of pretence, and we long for others to find the same freedom, or, to use Merton's terminology, to exchange the false self for the true self.¹⁴ [111]

[SFM 102-111]