The Archetype of the Shadow

[David Guyatt]

so we are saying :

"The Christian aion is typified by a split"

"the psychological fact ....surrounding the birth of Christ, was that it was a twin birth - two brothers, not just one Son."

to me however this seems quite reminiscent of the Osiris : Set mythology which pre-dates the Christian aion by some degree - I presume - in this chronology ?
I presume you are well aware of the mythological parallels between the Christ story & earlier .
Does this parallel in any way challenge this or merely demonstrate the universality of archetypes ?

No apologies required Chris. This is exceedingly complicated material. Yes I am aware of the Osiris Set pairing, as with Isis Osiris. Mythology is a rich treasure trove of symbols that speak of these matters. By which I mean matters of the psyche.

And you must please forgive me for my stumbling explanations, but I am trying to do justice to Jung and, frankly, it ain't an easy task. If I were discussing this with you face to face, I would be more relaxed and spontaneous, but this is a more formal discussion and so I need to take extra care with accuracy, and this causes a certain degree of stiffness. This can't be helped, I think.

Fortunately, I am far from being alone in this. As Edinger remarks to those analysts attending his Aion lectures, the first thing one has to do "is to recognize Jung's magnitude" and understand that "Jung's consciousness vastly surpasses your own", and that his "breadth and depth are absolutely awesome. We are all Lilliputians by comparison. To read Jung successfully, we must begin by accepting our own littleness; then we are teachable".

And so, Lilliputian to Lilliputian, onto the question at hand. But allow me to take a step backwards first.

We are not discussing the historical figure of Joshua Ben Joseph upon whom the Christian Redeemer was later projected. Although very much tangled up with matters of religious faith, we are actually discussing psychological realities; the archetype of the Self symbolized as Christ and which may one day become conscious in each one of us. Consciousness demands a recognition of both qualities of good and evil in our own psyches.

And if I may be poetical about it, the point Jung is making is that man having chosen to wholly identify with goodness rather than the whole archetype (good and evil) caused an equal and opposite reaction in his psyche. And since we are dealing with both a personal and a collective phenomenon, the "psychological rule" as stated earlier, will play out both personally and collectively as fate.

I suppose that if a sufficient number of people confront their own shadows voluntarily, then the collective fate may be diminished or avoided. I say this with a certain degree of hesitancy.

In the last analysis, this thread fundamentally focuses on the inner shadow confrontation. It is a psychic journey that many today eschew because of their fascination with physical existence. Thus in the same way (and degree) that we flee from dealing with our shadow, so we no longer give credence to our psychic reality.

It is almost an absurd prejudice to suppose that existence can only be physical. As a matter of fact, the only form of existence of which we have immediate knowledge is psychic [i.e., in the mind]. We might as well say, on the contrary, that physical existence is a mere inference, since we know of matter only in so far as we perceive psychic images mediated by the senses. Jung