Shadow

Perhaps, though I doubt that. But it sure is intentional. And why be sneaky if you ain’t conscious. What’s the motivation to be?

Or lets put it this way; it is conscious of itself, but the ego isn’t conscious of it.
The ego as I see it is a social construct. It is conscious of the place in the world of logoic hierarchies of power but it isn’t conscious of its will.

We slip into different layers of consciousness in trances.

The process is rather savage.

Many people go through it in youth, and many of these become criminals.

Those that have the sort of life that allows for slow integration in adulthood are people with whom the superego of society evolves.

To evade consciousness… :wink:

Yeah, Sartre and his autonomous floating ego consciousness lost in space. Nobody that knows anything about neuro-science or evolutionary psychology or archetypal psychology thinks his brand of “condemned to be free” conscious is supportable. I don’t see Sartre getting any 21st century scientific support for his philosophy. That blurb that you cited above talks about one small aspect of Freud’s take on repression. It hardly deals with the vast phenomenal relationship of consciousness to the unconscious psyche.

Sartre had to coin a word “non-thetical” in order to deal repressed material. Well, sure it’s conscious until the ego stuffs it. Then where does it go? It’s forgotten. And what shall we call that? Whatever your euphemism is for the unconscious. Oh, I know…it becomes "non-thetical’. #-o

FELIX — “Why can’t the unconscious self have intentionality? Why must the unconscious psyche be inert? Psychological evidence shows that the unconscious is motivated and dynamic.”

PROM --=“because consciousness is a phenomenological complex of schemes that must cooperate under the guidance of intent, there can be no consciousness without these structures”

Am I hallucinating or is there a subterranean agreement lurking here?

Intent precedes consciousness. Intent does not have to be conscious.

I always loved this quote.

It is the inferior side (or what we feel is the inferior side) of our self which we refuse to look at, to acknowledge.
We always seem to see it within someone else but not our self. It is called projection.
I’ll get back to you as for the rest.

The unconscious psyche reveals the shadow through dreams. And other people can tell us things about ourselves that we can’t see, that is, things about which we are unconscious.

Pet peeves about other people can tell a lot. Ask people who know you what you seem to overreact to negatively in other people. There’s the shadow. You think you’re bugged because they are ‘bad’ or ‘annoying’ etc., and while this is ALSO true, you’re probably jealous they let themselves express that facet of themselves you lock in the basement.

Yes and when people who know us tell us things about ourselves that we are unaware of, it’s easy to become defensive and deny the truth of their observation. We seem to see this happening right here on ILP, as for example, in the case of our moral nihilist friend. He won’t accept feedback about what he does even though multiple people are telling him roughly the same thing about himself.

Many times an archetype like the Shadow can affect our mood and we don’t know why. A friend who knows our situation may be to explain our mood to us better than we can explain it ourselves. We should listen and try to be open to what they are telling us about ourselves. They may be onto something we don’t have conscious access to.

I can do this on occasion. And I have allowed some really horrible feelings and intentions in myself to bubble up to the surface and be expressed. Violent denied aspect of myself, for example, I let ‘take over’ and express their rage - though I was, of course, alone and did not live this out on anyone else. I did not like what I found but I noticed that once expressed there were more healthy versions (of standing up for myself or of expressing desire, even) that were more accessible. I really hate it when someone else notices something first in me. I wish I could say I always take this gracefully, though sometimes I do. Easier when it is someone who loves me, though I’ve managed to work with some reflections from people who dislike me.

I think this is most important bravery. Can one do this?

One can. The unconscious self can put us into situations where it’s necessary for our psychological survival. This gets into the subject of individuation.

It also happens that when we idealize other people that we become unable to see their shadow. This happens in romantic relationships. You fall in love and the other seems beautiful and perfect in every way. Then one day you see their Shadow side and you are shocked to find out that they are a flawed human primate like everybody else.

It also happens to our perception of celebrities and political figures. The tabloid market thrives on overthrowing the popular hero by unveiling his/her shadow side. Or, how about the way Obama’s young followers idealized him when he was running for office and were shocked when as a President he failed to achieve all of his lofty promises? Shock, disappointment and cynicism set in.

So I think the Shadow is related to the idealized self and to the idealized other. The shadow is the other side in the duality. The question becomes: Why do we idealize ourselves and others? What purpose does idealization serve?

Yes, I meant that if one can do this, one is brave. If the answer to that question is yes, then one is brave. I think a lot of risk-taking gets judged brave. It may be. But noticing who one truly is, is a true test of bravery, one that many risk-takers who seem like heroes cannot manage.

perhaps you meant this: the ideals generate the shadow. We think we should be like X and should not have urges and emotions and reactions Y, Z and *. Ideals teach us to suppress rather than integrate.

I was referring to the idealized self and the idealized other which are images not to ideals which are abstract concepts, axioms, principles, etc.

felix dakat

This is true. I once had a dream about seeing what I believe to be my shadow. Very often I have dreams where I am in the dark of night. lol Anyway, it was nighttime and I was in a forest. I had some overwhelming sense of fear, that something was lurking somewhere. I looked to my left and there was something hiding behind a tree but kind of showing itself. It was, in a sense, there but at the same time, not there. Then I woke up.

I think perhaps that when we encounter such so-called entities it might be a good thing to face them down and ask why they are there and what they have to say to us.

This is true but those are the picayne kind of projections that others can see about us that we do not want to see but they are easier to see if we could give up the ego.

There are far deeper-down parts of our shadow which we are afraid to be made aware of but with self-awareness in moments of experiencing that shadow and honest reflection, we can make it a pussy cat that becomes our companion.

Have you ever watched one of those old spaghetti westerns when someone is being hung on a tree by a rope for stealing a horse? If you observe the crowd, the mob, you see before you a gathering of ignominious shadows waiting for the kill, to be satisfied. It is a very scary thing not knowing who we are and what lurks beneath and within us.

It is a frightening thought that man also has a shadow side to him, consisting not just of little weaknesses- and foibles, but of a positively demonic dynamism. The individual seldom knows anything of this; to him, as an individual, it is incredible that he should ever in any circumstances go beyond himself. But let these harmless creatures form a mass, and there emerges a raging monster; and each individual is only one tiny cell in the monster’s body, so that for better or worse he must accompany it on its bloody rampages and even assist it to the utmost. Having a dark suspicion of these grim possibilities, man turns a blind eye to the shadow-side of human nature. Blindly he strives against the salutary dogma of original sin, which is yet so prodigiously true. Yes, he even hesitates to admit the conflict of which he is so painfully aware.
“On the Psychology of the Unconscious” (1912). In CW 7: Two Essays on Analytical Psychology. P.35

That’s a powerful quote. In particular it suggests that ignoring the Shadow can result in a person naively going along with a malevolent crowd as happened in Nazi Germany and is being recapitulated with the rise of fascism today.

Lol. :smiley: I frequently think this can be expanded to encompass most of philosophy.

[size=50]shhhhhh. don’t tell anyone here i gave you this.[/size]

[size=50]Ok ok[/size]. Move along folks, nothing to see here. Oh look over there, an elephant !

The police officer who gave up his job to move to Africa to become a tour guide on Safaris.