Thread by @lamplighterjv

@esglaude is spot on and on fire! As a Jungian, I like this invocation of Shadow. @AshaRangappa_’s on to something to bring it up here. However, I would caution that we all have a Shadow, and thus we all contribute to any collective shadow. A thread. 1/

https://twitter.com/asharangappa_/status/1324148095765020672

To claim one group is all shadow and thus implying that another is all light falls into the dangerous trap of otherizing. 2/

We all carry Shadow. And we all walk in Consciousness. Some of us are more conscious than others. But we are both conscious and unconscious. For better or worse. 3/

The questions are: how much consciousness will we seek or allow to flourish? How will we contend with and integrate our Shadow—both as individuals and as a collective, as a society? 4/

I would argue that this entire period of our history is a conscious-making period, a time and a chance to contend with our collective shadow in the full light of consciousness. This is a difficult & painful process. How this story ends is now up to all of us. 5/

Here’s a quote from one of Jung’s pupils, Dr. Jolande Jacobi (from my own paper on collective complexes present at Standing Rock and the #NoDAPL movement, cited at the end). 6/

“Jacobi (1959) asserted that collective complexes pose a greater threat than merely
personal ones:... 7/

“... ‘the danger and the corresponding anxiety are greatest when the
confrontation is with complexes of the collective unconscious, whose ‘explosive charge’
can act as an earthquake shattering everything around it’ (Jacobi, 1959, p. 29)....” 8/

And I continued: “... A group carries greater
psychic energy—and potentially a greater and more damaging charge—than the energy
generated by a single individual’s complex....” 9/

“... If not brought into consciousness and
holistically addressed, such a complex has the potential to wreak widespread distress or
devastation” (Vaughn, 2018, p.21). 10/

For more visit the Journal of Jungian Scholarly Studies jungianjournal.ca or read my article here: doi.org/10.29173/jjs11s 11/

Or check out Dr. Jacobi’s book: “Complex / archetype / symbol in the psychology of C. G. Jung” (1959). 12/

Or, if you love fairy tales—carriers of our collective shadow—read Dr. Marie-Louise von Franz’s “Shadow and Evil in Fairy Tales” (1974/1995). 13/

Or Robert Bly’s “A Little Book on the Human Shadow” (1988). 14/

And btw I am doing my own individual and collective Shadow work. I am wrestling with the violent legacy of my ancestors who immigrated here starting 14 generations ago. 15/

My ancestors committed genocide against the Wampanoag at Plymouth and later the Cherokee and Shawnee in the Tennessee territory. Later ancestors owned slaves in Tennessee and Kentucky and Missouri. 16/

My ancestors did all this while helping to create and nurture the United States of America. My story is an American story. 17/

And yet my ancestral shadow is dark, just like the shadow of this nation. 18/

Now is the time to contend with these truths and bring our whole history into consciousness. Now or never. And may this difficult work start with me! 19/

#Jung #Shadow #CollectiveUnconscious #America #NoDAPL #MniWiconi #BlackLivesMatter 20/fin.