The Archetype of the Shadow

[David Guyatt]

Edinger explicates the above three para's with the following insights:

To underscoe what Jung says here, the advent of Christ represented psychologically the split of the opposites in the God image [Imago Dei] into two irreconcilable halves, Christ and Satan. This was a necessary step in the development of consciousness, but it has led to a profound one-sidedness and to a disassociated condition that now has to be corrected.

The first stage in that correction, if one has been identified with the image of Christ, is an encounter with the opposite of Christ, namely, Antichrist.

Which, of course - fruit cake and yawning jokes apart - is the fundamental focus of this thread, the confrontation of the shadow today.

And into this curious mix we can add something further (my italics).

Today humanity, as never before, is split into two apparently irreconcilable halves. The psychological rule says that when an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside, as fate. That is to say, when the individual remains undivided and does not become conscious of his inner contradictions, the world must perforce act out the conflict and be torn into opposite halves.

Aion. Para 126

The world is increasingly becoming more divided, and thus Jung's psychological rule above now seems to be happening outside, as fate as we speak.

And this, I think, is why Jung, when asked, in a BBC Television interview, if a Third World war was likely (circa 1959) replied:

The only real danger that exists is man himself, he is the great danger. And we are pitifully unaware of it. We know nothing of man. Far too little. His psyche should be studied because we are the origin of all coming evil.