Meeting the Shadow: The Hidden Power of the Dark Side of Human Nature

by Connie Zweig

In our personal relationships, the purpose of shadow-work is not to invalidate the inevitable negative thoughts and feelings that arise; rather, it seeks to shed light on what is projection, which we have a hand in creating and therefore in healing, and what is in the other person that is separate and may call forth a valid negative response.

He wants to help them; he identifies with them; he senses that anything that is happening to them is happening to himself.

Evil, then, is a distortion of facts that in themselves are natural. Because the sick person does not perceive his own distortions, he feels that the ills in his life and functioning come from the outside. The sicker he is, the more he feels that his troubles are caused by outside forces.

Wilhelm Reich, in describing the condition of armoring, sheds great light on how sickness operates. The armored person, he said, shuts himself off from nature, specifically by forming barriers against the impulses of life within his body. The armored body stiffens up and is inaccessible to feeling, and the organ sensations are diminished or subside. Then the person becomes lukewarm; he hates, but he doesn’t even know it. He is ambivalent.

“Do not resist evil” (Matthew 5:39). Let us examine this. The resistance itself is the evil.

The dark traits would be the recessive, deceptive qualities of which we generally remain unaware and which alternatingly make their unexpected appearance. Because of their sheer unpredictability we find them irritating, especially when they get us into uncomfortable situations. Frequently, they are the very thing which calls into question the image we present for public consumption and which acts as the source of doubt of our own identity. The recessive traits are also the least adapted sides of our personalities, having finally a curious tendency to ‘descend’ into the body where they stubbornly clamor for our attention as disease syndromes. While the dominant, overvalued traits would lead us to view ourselves as the crown of creation, our recessive inferiorities provide us every reason to doubt such a conclusion.

human beings seem less capable of being healthy the more they believe they have to be healthy.

We are better grounded by the afflictions, protected and shielded, as if all our strivings assumed a touch of spontaneity.

Here is a quick checklist for spotting the signs of onrushing hubris: Endowing ourselves with special gifts. When we find that we have begun to take on certain airs of self-inflation, such as believing we can make unfailing assessments of others or avoid human errors, we are seeing the shadow’s face. Killing the messenger. When we denounce contrary informants as cranky, slow-witted, jealous, or unable to grasp the big picture, we are on the way to suffering in the future. If as leaders we seal ourselves off, pulling our circle of trusted advisors tighter and tighter, we have begun to kill the messengers. Needing to command the performance. When hubris is present, the ego begins to assert itself in power-flexing demonstrations, such as fretting about social forms, seating arrangements, and meeting turf. Needing to see our importance constantly acknowledged by others is a sign of denied insecurity. Living on higher moral ground. When a person or group is on the path of righteousness, those who think differently may be labeled as wrong, evil, or an enemy. This may temporarily relieve the tension between good and bad, but it’s actually hubris operating under the guise of goodness. When hubris is operating, we stop learning. Our swollen ego screens the shadow, which threatens to pull us down by its dark and stealthful rage. But once we know it’s there, it can be helpful to remember that new learning is contained within the very material that the shadow holds. The ego is only pr...

“Use your faults” was the motto of French songstress Edith Piaf.

No other part of our personality reveals our basic temperament, our fundamental way of working, more than does our dark side—the part of ourselves which illogically unfolds at its own time and which has its own requirements. I’m referring to our uncontrollable impulses, the habits we simply can’t break; the unacceptable, contradictory tendencies moving us in opposition to the way we intended to go. These are the opposing thrusts that give our life richness and mystery. These impulses, habits and contradictions even supply the dynamic energy that gives our lives distinction and drive. Jung described it this way: Conscious and unconscious do not make a whole when one of them is suppressed and injured by the other. If they must contend, let it at least be a fair fight with equal rights on both sides. Both are aspects of life . . . and the chaotic life of the unconscious should be given the chance of having its way too—as much of it as we can stand. This means open conflict and open collaboration at once. That, evidently, is the way human life should be. It is the old game of hammer and anvil: Between them the patient iron is forged into an indestructible whole, an “individual.”

This attitude does not mean that we continue to harm ourselves, or that we ignore or escalate addictive, self-limiting behaviors. It means that we stop warring against ourselves. We try to take an objective, aerial view of what each behavior is saying about us, what it means in the big-picture of our self’s journey unto itself. Here are some helpful questions to use in spotting the potential value of our “bad habits.”

Paul says, “Be angry, but do not sin.” That has a contemporary ring for us. Sin is alienation. Do not let your anger separate you from others, but don’t suppress your anger either. Be angry, all right. But “do not let the sun set over your anger.” That is again a poetic statement. It may mean, literally, before evening, make up. That’s one of the clearest meanings of it. But it may also mean never, not even at this moment when you are angry, let the sun set over this shadow. You see how beautifully it’s expressed. Do not let the sun go down over your anger. Do not let your anger lead to alienation.

Moral, ethical, and spiritual integrity is required, but accurate practical knowledge is just as important.

Roland believes that Asian students approach the teacher-student relationships more subtly than Americans—who often commit rapidly and completely, or not at all. Asian students may display deference, but withhold veneration, until they have studied with a teacher for years. They seem to have a “private self” unknown to many Americans, which is capable of reserving judgment even while scrupulously following the forms. When a teacher fails, Asians may continue to defer to his superior rank but silently withdraw affection and respect.

Becoming transparent to accusations does not mean parts of oneself do not feel hurt, humiliated, angry, and defensive. It means realizing what is actually transpiring and not going unconscious or falling victim to one’s own disowned material! I knew the shadow of the community was erupting and I was the mirror. I also recognized that those forces and qualities which were being attacked were parts of myself as well.

Alan McGlashan views war specifically as “the punishment of man’s disbelief in those forces within himself.”

This can be explained by the unconscious process known as participation mystique, whereby individuals and groups make a feeling-toned identification with an object, person, or idea, failing to make moral distinctions within themselves or in their perception of the object.

The denial of evil is learned behavior.

“In seeking to avoid evil, man is responsible for bringing more evil into the world than organisms could ever do merely by exercising their digestive tracts.

In Aion, Jung criticized such thinking, saying: There is a tendency, existing right from the start, to give priority to “good,” and to do so with all the means in our power, whether suitable or unsuitable . . . the tendency always to increase the good and diminish the bad. The privatio boni may therefore be a metaphysical truth. I presume to no judgment on this matter. I must only insist that in our field of experience white and black, light and dark, good and bad, are equivalent opposites which always predicate one another.

The Jungian doctrine of the shadow, and the notion that evil is the reverse of good, are aimed at denying the reality of evil. But evil is real. It is not innate but acquired, and it is never the reverse of good but rather its destroyer. .

“Strangely enough,” says Peck, “evil people are often destructive because they are attempting to destroy evil. The problem is that they misplace the locus of evil. Instead of destroying others, they should be destroying the sickness within themselves.”

Daniel Berrigan says: “Every step forward also digs the depths to which one can likewise go.” No longer shall we feel that virtues are to be gained merely by leaving behind vices; the distance up the ladder ethically is not to be defined in terms of what we have left behind. Otherwise goodness is no longer good but self-righteous pride in one’s own character. Evil also, if it is not balanced by capacities for good, becomes insipid, banal, gutless, and apathetic. Actually we become more sensitive to both good and evil each day; and this dialectic is essential for our creativity.

To admit frankly, our capacity for evil hinges on our breaking through our pseudoinnocence. So long as we preserve our one-dimensional thinking, we can cover up our deeds by pleading innocent. This antediluvian escape from conscience is no longer possible. We are responsible for the effect of our actions, and we are also responsible for becoming as aware as we can of these effects.

Life consists of achieving good not apart from evil but in spite of it.

It is necessary that we first draw the distinction between evil and ordinary sin. It is not their sins per se that characterize evil people, rather it is the subtlety and persistence and consistency of their sins. This is because the central defect of the evil is not the sin but the refusal to acknowledge it.

I also obviously make the distinction between evil as a personality characteristic and evil deeds. In other words, evil deeds do not an evil person make. Otherwise we should all be evil, because we all do evil things.

Sinning is most broadly defined as “missing the mark.” This means that we sin every time we fail to hit the bull’s-eye. Sin is nothing more and nothing less than a failure to be continually perfect. Because it is impossible for us to be continually perfect, we are all sinners. We routinely fail to do the very best of which we are capable, and with each failure we commit a crime of sorts—against God, our neighbors, or ourselves, if not frankly against the law.

If you are sufficiently scrupulous not to have done any such thing recently, then ask whether there is any way in which you have lied to yourself. Or have kidded yourself. Or have been less than you could be—which is a self-betrayal. Be perfectly honest with yourself, and you will realize that you sin. If you do not realize it, then you are not perfectly honest with yourself, which is itself a sin. It is inescapable: we are all sinners.

predominant characteristic, however, of the behavior of those I call evil is scapegoating. Because in their hearts they consider themselves above reproach, they must lash out at anyone who does reproach them. They sacrifice others to preserve their self-image of perfection.

Scapegoating works through a mechanism psychiatrists call projection. Since the evil, deep down, feel themselves to be faultless, it is inevitable that when they are in conflict with the world they will invariably perceive the conflict as the world’s fault. Since they must deny their own badness, they must perceive others as bad. They project their own evil onto the world. They never think of themselves as evil; on the other hand, they consequently see much evil in others.

In other words, the evil attack others instead of facing their own failures.

Spiritual growth requires the acknowledgment of one’s need to grow. If we cannot make that acknowledgment, we have no option except to attempt to eradicate the evidence of our imperfection.

evil people are often destructive because they are attempting to destroy evil. The problem is that they misplace the locus of the evil. Instead of destroying others they should be destroying the sickness within themselves. As life often threatens their self-image of perfection, they are often busily engaged in hating and destroying that life—usually in the name of righteousness. The fault, ...

This is hardly the case with those I call evil. Utterly dedicated to preserving their self-image of perfection, they are unceasingly engaged in the effort to maintain the appearance of moral purity. They worry about this a great deal. They are acutely sensitive to social norms and what others might think of them. They dress well, go to work on time, pay their taxes, and outwardly seem to live lives that are above reproach.

While they seem to lack any motivation to be good, they intensely desire to appear good. Their “goodness” is on a level of pretense. It is, in effect, a lie. This is why they are the “people of the lie.”

Actually, the lie is designed not so much to deceive others as to deceive themselves. They cannot or will not tolerate the pain of self-reproach.

Yet the self-deceit would be unnecessary if the evil had no sense of right and wrong. We lie only when we are attempting to cover up something we know to be illicit. Some rudimentary form of conscience must precede the act of lying. There is no need to hide unless we first feel that something needs to be hidden.

Evil originates not in the absence of guilt but in the effort to escape it.

If often happens, then, that the evil may be recognized by its very disguise. The lie can be perceived before the misdeed it is designed to hide—the cover-up before the fact.

“The uncanny game of hide-and-seek in the obscurity of the soul, in which it, the single human soul, evades itself, avoids itself, hides from itself.”4

They may willingly, even eagerly, undergo great hardships in their search for status. It is only one particular kind of pain they cannot tolerate: the pain of their own conscience, the pain of the realization of their own sinfulness and imperfection.

Since they will do almost anything to avoid the particular pain that comes from self-examination, under ordinary circumstances the evil are the last people who would ever come to psychotherapy.

The evil hate the light—the light of goodness that shows them up, the light of scrutiny that exposes them, the light of tru...

Men are not comfortable with guilt, it chokes them; literally it is the shadow that falls over their existence.

No wonder Jung could observe—even more damningly than Rank or Reich—that “the principal and indeed the only thing that is wrong with the world is man.”

The “central defect of evil,” says Scott Peck, “is not the sin but the refusal to acknowledge it.”1 What we cannot face will catch us from behind. When we gain the true strength to acknowledge our imperfect moral condition, we are no longer possessed by demons.

When we acknowledge that the capacity for evil lives within us as well, we can make peace with our shadow, and our ship can sail safely.

There is a Hasidic story. The son of a Rabbi went to worship on the Sabbath in a nearby town. On his return, his family asked, “Well, did they do anything different from what we do here?” “Yes, of course,” said the son. “Then what was the lesson?” “Love thy enemy as thyself.” “So, it’s the same as we say. And how is it you learned something else?” “They taught me to love the enemy within myself.”