Identification of the Shadow.
Part Two: Projections
Most of these arguments happened on Saturday, or Sunday if we were apart the day before. Over time I even realized they were starting at 2:15 every Saturday and 5:00 on Sundays if Saturdays was missed. According to a source on demonology and angels, a particular demon named Sammael ruled those times by coincidence of those days. They would last for about an hour and a half with full emotional outbursts on her part and then reach a cooling stage for the next half hour. At this point I am in full gear trying to figure out how we are not going to be at this point again next week. I would use allot of logic and be repeating things she said during the augment within the first hour. Funny thing was that she could never remember what she was saying in that first highly emotionally charged state. But I was wrong in believing what she was saying was addressed to me.
Now as a kid my brother was a trouble maker who was frequently arrested and never home for days on end, usually coming home in a drunken or stoned state. Now my mother would come home from a taxing, unappreciated job, all tired to find my brother missing again. She would be yelling into the air with only me too listen about how much my brother distresses her with all her pent up emotion being transferred to me. Now I was the only one in the family who would wipe up the counter after using it, she would at times find the smallest mayonnaise stain and let into me good about it. I became resentful for the moment and left the room.
Projections are when one person externally expresses some latent subconscious attitude, good or bad, on an external object or person. How many times have this happened to you
" So if you meet me, have some courtesy, have some sympathy, and some taste. Use all your well-learned politesse or I'll lay your soul to waste ?"
Sympany for the Devil; Rolling Stones
Remember when my first girlfriend used to start yelling about her poverty on the full moon, or when she became silent on our long walks; I was wrong for believing I was the cause. Well I am back to being out every night of the week again, do you think she was angry about me only wanting to live in bed? Who was she really disgusted at? Well I was wrong again when I listened to what my girlfriend had said about me; she was not even talking to me at all! Then again she was not speaking those words either! I was not being told I was passive aggressive, controlling, inflexible, a prejudice white middle class suburban male, could not take criticism, lacked compromise, could not communicate, and not validate her emotions. It was her repressed shadow side breaking forth to speak to her ego that was constantly bringing a division between what she could not accept or believe she was capable of doing; for good or bad! It was my mistake to believe they were talking to me. It was much like when my mother was screaming into the air about my brother and me taking it upon myself. It still hurts for you are the one that gets the energy transference. Energy can not be created or destroyed, only transferred. When one is stressed out, they may punch on some punching bag. Over time the transference of energy might puncture the bag and the sand will leak out. But the stress was removed from the person to the bag. Emotional energy was released through a physical transformation resulting in the tear in the bag. But emotional to emotional release will take physical manifestations until tears in the person happens. Splits from reality. Ever heard that someone was a pain in the neck, back, or ass! Where do you think that phrase comes from?
Now the ego is the conscious self that is presented to the world in its many masks. The shadow is the repressed boons or faults that the ego can not accept. Like the Muslim Shaitan, is always rearing its head in conflict to have any dialogue with its love and master, God. But God is forever shunning it and placing shame, blame and guilt upon him. So when it seems if God is sleeping, Lucifer rises and causes strife and turmoil into the world. This is the archetype of the shadow, the trickster. Either imp with horns, raven, crow, coyote, or wolf; these are trickster gods who bring strife to show the foolishness in the egos out dated or one sided attitude. They continue their mischievous or destructive nature until change comes about that brings integration between the two. They are the ones the sabotage the ego's conscious abilities to stop eating, drinking, or any compulsive bad behavior. They are the devil on your shoulder who punches the angel on the other clear off; 'Go ahead, have that Twinkie!'. If you won't accept them and love them and make them happy, they will be damned if the ego is going to be. If you won't love them, they will do all that is in their power to make it that you are not loved either. So they lash out and do not trust those in relationship with the ego. Now the ego has a hard time recognizing the dark aspects of the personality as present and real. For years people suffer from bad behaviors and emotional outbursts without realizing their is another half of their personality. In Alchemy it states before any thing is made whole you must separate it into its parts. You must realize that the shadow acts independently until joined as an equal. The ego keeps trying to stop the bad behaviors without ever realizing for a time the ball is not in its court. The shadow will tend to ruin all relationships until accepted., Because they find it that the other person ignores or rejects them as well. But remember that in Shakespeare's taming of the Shrew, that Katrina and her younger sister are actual metaphors for a single person; you can not love a woman truly without taming her shrew (i.e. Shadow).
Now Jung calls the merger of the ego and the shadow side is called the self through a process called individualization. It used to be called alchemy. Ever wonder why the first book of Harry Potter was called the Sorcerer's Stone. Sorcerer's stone, Philosopher stone, Holy Grail is all the same. Bringing base matter into gold. Turning the dirty neglected child under the stairs and teaching it that it is special and magical. In the Harry Potter story, it mentions Nicholas Flamel, Queen Elisabeth's personal alchemist and astrologer. It was he who made the stone in the story. I am just hoping that link between Voldemort and Harry brings a merger in the seventh book instead of a duel to the death. After all, he would only be confronting his own shadow. So if you truly love some one, you can take your distance from them, or they will take their own distance from you once you are pursuing them to change their lives in the direction they have chosen that you both agree is healthy, but do help them integrate. Jung says few people ever attain the self. But he is just silly, we are all going to do this together. Remember the return!
So how do you identify the Shadow and realize it is not you with the problem. First of all, have you ever felt like you ever walked right into an emotional mine field. Remember Richard Pryor in Stir Crazy when he was told he had to find the one word that Pissed off the cow, did you ever wonder why he had so much trouble finding that word. Damn you find yourself on the horns of the bull all the time. Good thing for the horns on the bull are a symbol of earthly rebirths. When you stumble on one of these, Jung calls them a complex. Jung posed this that you ask a simple question that a child could answer, and a highly intelligent person cannot reply, Why. Then when asked about the complex, the person might answer insufficiently with a yes or no answer, use erratic body gestures, stumble or having trouble addressing the complex, not reacting to the real meaning or intention to the question, or slipping into another language. He states these actions are totally against the will. Some times the ego has no idea of the more recent ones and only a vague distressing recollection of past complexes. Jung also states that the shadow reveals that they have an emotional nature, a kind of autonomy, and accordingly an obsessive or, better, possessive quality. Emotion, incidentally, is not an activity of the individual but something that happens to him. The ego takes the old complexes and shoved them into the closet a long time ago and is trying hard to forget them and the new ones it does not have a clue about because it does not conversant with the shadow to know what it is saying. These complexes the ego recede from and let the shadow out to deal with. The ego runs away from these issues than rather deal with them.
Another identification of the Shadow is the total lapse of memory in emotional charge interactions. The ego is not talking or listening to the shadow so it does not know what it says. The personality is of a make up of various distinct and individual parts. As Pablo says in Stephenwolf to the hero Harry Haller, we are just the various assemblages of parts that we choose to stack upon one another like piece on a chess board. It is only when we loose control of that stacking order then do we have a problem. Luckily for Harry and most people, they only have two controlling aspects of this arrangement; God or the devil. It is in the fourth chakra where these two no longer fight for dominance.
Remember the first girlfriend and the full moon or walks at night. Then the second with Saturdays at 2:15 for a set duration of time? The shadow has a wave like pattern of interacting. Much like a child who is way past her nap, or a sugar rush; the shadow dances. Jung says that certain experimental investigations seem to indicate that its intensity or activity curve has a wavelike character, with a "wavelength" of hours, days, or weeks. Does any of this sound familiar?
