Goethe's Faust, perhaps the greatest example in literature of the meeting of ego and shadow, is about a pale, dried - up professor who has come to the point of suicide because of the unlivable distance between his ego and his shadow - his seesaw has been burdened to the breaking point. At this point Faust meets his equally impossible shadow, Mephistopheles, who apprears as his lordship, the devil. The explosion of energy at the meeting is extreme, yet they persevere and their long and vivid story is our best instruction in the redemption of ego and shadow. Faust is saved from his lifelessness and becomes a red-blooded person capable of passion: Mephistopheles is saved from his amoral life and also discovers his capacity to love. LOVE is the one word in our western tradition adequate to describe this synthesis of ego and shadow.
Faust shows with great power that the redemption of the ego is possible only as the redemption of the shadow parrallels it.
As the shadow is drawn up into consciousness, it becomes softer, more pliable, more gentle. Faust's character is filled out by the addition of his shadow. he is made whole by his encounter with Mephistopheles, and the same is true in reverse. Better said, neither ego nor shadow can be redeemed unless its twin is transformed. It is this rubbing together that brings them both back to their original wholeness. This is nothing less than healing the split between heaven and hell. Lucifer (another name for our shadow) was once part of the heavenly host, and he must be restored to his rightful place by the end. This vast mythological statement applies to the individual psyche as well: it tells us that it is the task of every man and woman to restore the shadow and redeem our rejected qualities.