The Shadow: Carl Jung's Final Warning to the World

The mechanics of your dark side

Carl Jung was, without a doubt, a gnostic. Not to be confused with agnostic. It is my working theory that Jordan Peterson is also a gnostic.

Gnostics are those who are “in the know.” And what is it that they know? They know secrets that when revealed feel as though they’re transforming your life. The movie “The Matrix” is based on gnosticism. For gnostics, a person is saved not by explicitly having faith in Christ or by doing good works.

Rather, a person is saved by knowing the truth — the truth about the world we live in, about how you should conduct your life, the meaning of work, and especially about who we ourselves are.

And at the center of Jung’s theory is this concept called “The Shadow.”

Learning about it has changed my life. 

Becoming Your True Self: The Shadow

Carl Jung coined the modern idea of the Persona, and Shadow much clearer than his teacher Sigmund Freud, and also Synchronicity which is that feeling of deja vu. Each of these concepts could be its own article, but let's focus on the Shadow.

Most of us like to believe that we’re “good.” We follow a moral code, treat others the way we want to be treated, and when push comes to shove we believe that we’ll stand for what’s right.

Deep down, like really really deep down, we know this is not true.

Maybe we can stand for what’s right some of the time, but what about in a desperate situation? What about when you let your anger get the best of you? Who do you become then? Are you still a paragon of moral virtue?

“To become conscious of it [the shadow] involves recognizing the dark aspects of the personality as present and real, Yung wrote in Aion. This act is the essential condition for any kind of self-knowledge.”

The reason I write at length about the dangers of the Federal Reserve, Big Government, and draconian foreign policy is that these malicious acts aren’t done at the behest of one person. Its individuals, like you and me, who commit these evil acts.

Power corrupts. But absolute power corrupts absolutely