Whilst President, Harry Truman had a sign on his desk which read:- "The buck stops here!".
probably the worst damage is done when parents lay their shadow on their children.
We could give our children the most wonderful blessing if only we would stop passing the buck to them.
is it possible to refuse a shadow projection from another person??
Only if one has one's own shadow reasonably well in hand. usually when we receive a shadow projection, your own shadow is ready to erupt and warfare is inevitable.
When your shadow is like a gasoline can waiting for a match to fall to it, you are fair game for anyone who wants to iritate you. To refuse another's shadow, you don't fight back, but like a good metador, you just let the bull go by.
ORIGINS OF THE SHADOW
So somewhere along the way, we eat one of the Yummy fruits of the tree of knowledge and things seperate into GOOD and EVIL; beginning the shadow-making process; our lives therefore divided.
In this cultural process our characteristics are divided into:-
Those acceptable to society &
Those that need to be put away.
Without this process of sorting out Good & Evil we would have no civilized behaviour. But the unacceptable and denied or refused characteristics do not simply wave Good-Bye. They lurk and collect in the dark recesses of our personality. When they have been hidden for far too long, they take on a life of their own. "THE SHADOW LIFE.
The shadow is that which has not entered into consciousness, is the despised corner of our being, whose potential is almost as great as that of our ego.
If over the years it manages to accumulate more energy than our beloved Ego, it erupts as an overpowering rage, or some indiscretion tht slips past us; or we might have an accident that seems to have its own purpose or we might become depressed. Once the shadow has gone autonomous, it takes a life of its own as a terrible monster in our psychic house.
So this is our legacy from having eaten of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden we divide the self into an ego and a shadow because culture insists we follow certain behavioural patterns. It is astonishing to find that during this sorting process, some very good characteristics turn up in the shadow.
Generally the Mundane and ordinary characteristics are the norm and anything lesser goes into the shadow. BUT also anything better goes in the shadow! Some of the pure GOLD of our personality is relegated to the shadow because it can find no place in that levelling process that is culture. And in a curious way, people resist the noble aspects of their shadow more strenuously than they hide the dark side. To draw the skeletons out of the closet is relatively easy but to own the GOLD in the shadow is a terrifying act!
It is more disrupting to find that you had a profound nobility of character than to find out that you are a bum.
Of course we are both:- noble and bum. But one does not discover these two sides at the same time. The GOLD relates to our higher calling, and this can be hard to accept at certain stages in one's life.
Dismissing and/or ignoring the GOLD can be as damaging as ignoring our dark side of the psyche, and some may suffer a severe shock or illness before they learn how to let the GOLD out. This is necessary to show us that part of us which is lying dormant.
In tribal traditions, shamans oftern experience an illness that gives them the insight they need to heal themselves and then bring the wisdom to their people. Some of us are still operating with the archetype of the wounded healer - who has learned to cure himself and find the GOLD in his experience.
To refuse the dark side of one's nature is to store up or accumulate the darkness. This is later expressed as a black mood, psychosomatic illness, or unconsciously inspired accidents.
We are currently dealing with the accummulation of a whole society that has worshipped its light side and refused the dark, and this residue appears as war, economic chaos, strikes and racial intolerance.
The front page of any newspaper hurls the collective shadow at us. We must be whole whether we like it or not, the only choice is whether we will incorporate the shadow consciously and with some dignity, or do it through some neurotic behaviour.
George Bernard Shaw said that the only alternative to TORTURE is ART. This means we will engage in our creativity (in the ceremonial or symbolic world) or have to face its alternative, brutlality. Any repair of our fractured world must start with individuals who have the insight and courage to own their own shadow. Nothing "out there" will help if the interior projecting mechanism of humankind is operating strongly.
The tendency to see one's shadow "Out There" in one's neighbour, or in another race or culture is the most dangerous aspect of the modern psyche. It has created two devastating wars in this century and threatens the destruction of all the fine achievements of our modern world. We all Decry war but collectively we move toward it. it is not the Monsters of the world who make such chaos but the collective shadow to which everyone of us has contributed. World War II gave us endless examples of shadow-projection. One of the most highly civilised nations on earth, Germany, fell into the idiocy of projecting its virulent shadow on the Jewish people.
DR. Jung has pointed out that it requires a sophisticated and disciplined society to fight a war as long and complicated as world war I and II. he said that primitive people would have tired of their war in a few weeks and gone home. They would not have had a great accummulation of shadow since they live more balanced lives and never venture as far from their center as we do. It was for us civilised people to bring warfare to its high development and so the greater the civilization, the more intent it is upon its own destruction. May our evolution proceed quickly enough for each to pick up our own dark side, combine it with our hard-earned light, and make something better of it all than the opposition of the two. This would be true holiness.
DOPPELGANGER: meaning one's own mirror image, one's opposite.
GOETHE was profoundly affected when he approached his home one evening and was met by a vision of his Doppleganger, the other one who lived in his personality. Few of us have so vivid an experience of our shadow, but whether we know it or not our psychic twin follows us like a mirror image. Most people presume taht they are the sole master of their house.