December 2006
Embracing Darkness
Taking a closer look at your own shadow side may be the first step toward bringing society back into the light
By Laine Bergeson
Good and bad are in my heart,
But I cannot tell to you—
For they never are apart—
Which is better of the two.
I am this! I am the other!
And the devil is my brother!
But my father, he is God!
And my mother is the Sod!
I am safe enough you see,
Owing to my pedigree.
So I shelter love and hate
Like twin brothers in a nest;
Lest I find when it’s too late,
That the other was the best.
—James Stephens
Physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer dubbed the first successful attempt to split the atom—a scientific achievement that ushered in the nuclear age, thereby casting one of the darkest shadows humanity has known—a moment of such magnitude that it shone “brighter than a thousand suns.”
The decades since have given rise to the possibility of complete human annihilation, along with the fear and paranoia that accompanies such a possibility. The atomic age—represented most ominously today by North Korean leader Kim Jong-il—is an evil made possible by one of the most brilliant moments in the history of scientific discovery.
If it weren’t so inescapably deadly, the paradox inherent here would be amusing in an academic sort of way. Viewed through the lens of modern day psychology, the spirit of an age is always intricately bound to this seemingly disparate pairing of light and dark. Twentieth century psychologist Carl Jung said every zeitgeist embodies both light and shadow, as a natural product of the light and dark in each individual human psyche. Jung called these two halves of a whole the “ego” and the “shadow.” Put these individual psyches together and they coalesce to create the spirit of our times. The microcosm reflected in the macrocosm. As above, so below.
What, then, does it say about our culture, and perhaps about our individual psyches, when the shadow seems to loom larger than the light? When the light seems obscured by darkness? Certain epochs in history have been trumped by darkness: Nazi Germany. American slavery. The nuclear age itself, viewed from today’s vantage point, seems to be generating more darkness than could be counteracted by, say, the wattage from a thousand suns.
In fact, let’s be honest: the current state of world affairs looks bleak. A lot of shadows are cropping up—in every corner of the planet.
So, what then? What is amiss in the universe when dark outpaces light, and what can members of the peace community do to tend to this imbalance? Must we plumb the depths of our own souls to understand the mayhem at play on the world stage? Conversely, can the state of current affairs tell us something about ourselves? The likely answer to both questions is yes. But therein lies the rub. In a world overrun with truancies large and small, are we, especially as peace activists, prepared to confront the darkness lurking within? Are we ready to acknowledge our own shadow sides—and embrace them? What if it were the most truly responsible thing we could do to help shape a better world?
When the ego becomes inflated, so Jungian theory goes, it projects its shadow on others and demonizes them as evil. The shadow lives in us, but because we deny it, we end up finding it in the world around us. This is how the other becomes “The Other,” that terrifying foreign being who embodies evil—conveniently, so that we don’t have to.
As Jung writes in The Undiscovered Self (orig. 1957, re-release 2006, Signet), “It is in the nature of political bodies always to see the evil in the opposite group, just as the individual has an ineradicable tendency to get rid of everything he does not know and does not want to know about himself by foisting it off on somebody else.”
It doesn’t take a nuclear physicist to spot the vast number of inflated egos at work in the world today, where demonizing the Other has become an international pastime. To wit, a brief list: George Bush believes Al-Queda is evil; Al-Queda, George Bush. Bush denounces Saddam; Saddam denounces him. Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad loathes us. So does Venezuelan head-honcho Hugo Chavez. He loves Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, though, but the American government despises Castro and vice versa. Palestine hates Israel, of course, and the rest of us hate, well, one of them, or neither of them, or both. Most of the world hates North Korea, and Mark Foley, and that guy who gunned down the Amish schoolgirls. Democrats can’t stand Republicans; Republicans can’t stand anybody who isn’t. (You get the picture.)
Unfortunately this has a tendency to backfire. Spiritual teacher and Jung scholar, Paul Levy, in his essay, “Shedding Light On Evil” on awakeinthedream.com, quotes Jung, writing that, “Projecting the shadow onto some other ‘strengthens the opponent’s position in the most effective way, because the projection carries the fear which we involuntarily and secretly feel for our own evil over to the other side and considerably increases the formidableness of his threat.’” Levy elaborates that, “The nature of this world is such that if we project out our own darkness, the world will shape-shift and provide convincing evidence that the evil really does exist out there, which simply confirms to us our delusion in a never-ending, self-generating feedback loop.”
One of the best tools we have for reining in the evil we project on others, writes William Sloane Coffin in Letters to a Young Doubter (Westminster John Knox, 2005), is to learn to let go of our smug certainty that our way is the right way. “Self-righteousness blocks our capacity for self-criticism, destroys humility and undermines the sense of oneness that should bind us all.”
What must be critically understood—as a way to help heal ourselves and the world—is the dark terrain of our own psyche. “Whatever is wrong in the world is in yourself,” says Jung. “Learn to deal with your own shadow and you’ll do something real for the world.”
Learning to deal with our shadow will not be pretty. Poet Robert Bly calls the shadow side the “Second Layer” of human interaction, and warns, in an essay in the poetry anthology Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart (HarperCollins, 1992): “The population of the Second Layer includes a high percentage of giants, hags, trolls, boxers, bears, street criminals, cops, vultures, gargoyles, streetwalkers and outraged motorists. The sidewalks are cracked, the stores are closed, the lights don’t work and there is no one who’ll listen to you.”
Still, tackling the Second Layer is vital to our health and the health of the community. He continues: “When people avoid entering this territory, they begin attracting shadowy figures who will one day explode into their life. Or, like a TV evangelist, they are compulsively drawn to the figures of the night. Cultures that try to shut out the Second Layer wind up with overcrowded prisons, high crime rates, huge black markets and, finally, riots in the street.”
Politics, too, is directly served by the individual who faces her demons. “Just as we must understand the economic context of a political problem,” writes director of the Center for Visionary Leadership Corinne McLaughlin in Spiritual Politics (Ballantine, 1994), “so must we understand the psychological context, because the political mind is a reflection of our psychological state. The better we understand human nature, the more effective and enlightened our politics will be.
“It’s important not to blame everyone and everything outside of ourselves, including our government,” Mclaughlin continues. “We can begin with the humility to take responsibility for our own contribution to problems—our aggression, power trips and selfishness. We can begin by exploring our internal politics—our own inner ‘defenses’ and willingness to ‘disarm.’”
Perhaps our greatest task in our work toward a more peaceful world is to learn to accept ourselves as we are, and not as we want ourselves to be. We must tend to and cultivate the soul of our humanity, not with the wish to exclude the darkness and the shadows, but with the desire to embrace them. We must hone our appreciation for the soulful personality, writes American psychologist Thomas Moore in his book Care of the Soul (Harper, 1994), which is “complicated, multifaceted and shaped by both pain and pleasure, success and failure. Life lived soulfully is not without its moments of darkness and periods of foolishness.”
Not only does accepting the existence of the shadow in ourselves help the body politic, it makes our own lives richer and more meaningful. Bly envisions the human condition in three layers, the First being the superficial top layer of manners and polite greetings, the Second being the layers of Shadow and darkness, and the Third being the one of “deeply shared humanity… of the underlying, fundamental oneness of human love, justice and peaceful co-existence” without some experience of which, “we die.” The trick is that the Third Layer is always moving—and we never know where we will find it next. But the route to it, if we try, is always accessible. “The only way to find the next location of the Third Layer is by traversing the battle-scarred, dog-infested terrain of the Second.”
Laine Bergeson is a Minneapolis, MN-based writer and editor.
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