Jung’s term for the repressed contents of the unconscious psyche that is rejected by the conscious ego. It can also refer to the lower or counter aspects of the Collective Unconscious, for example, Satan or the anti-christ as the Shadow of the Self image represented by Christ (Jung, 1969a). Much of this overlaps with the lower bands and subdegrees of the Nervovital (q.v.). All we fear or hate in ourselves ends up in the shadow. Individuation and shadow-work, which means becoming fully conscious of the shadow’s contents, is avoided by those whose respectable conscious egos deny the shadow and hence project it onto others as personal or cultural scapegoats (Chalquist, n.d.).
Published in Chapter:
The Collective Unconscious and the Media Sphere: An Esoteric Analysis of the Disinformation Crisis Facing Western Civilisation
M. Alan Kazlev (Independent Researcher, Australia)
Copyright: © 2022
|Pages: 22
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-8884-0.ch004
Abstract
A synthesis of Marshall McLuhan's typology of media, Carl Jung's theory of the Collective Unconscious, Teilhard de Chardin's Evolution, and Rudolf Steiner's Anthroposophy is used to explain the current crisis of Western Civilisation, as well as suggest possible responses. McLuhan described the transition from print to electronic (and now digital) media. Jung explored the collective unconscious and the power of the archetypes. Teilhard posited three evolutionary spheres; here, a further stage is added, the Psychosphere, equated with the Jungian unconscious. And Steiner referred to a threefold polarity of spiritual hierarchies that influence human consciousness and society. Conspiracism and the disinformation crisis comes about through archetypes working through the lower psychecological zones. Orientation to positive epigenetic, imaginal, and divine realities, with their high degree of holism and mythopoetic creativity, offers an alternative to both the paranoia of conspiracism and the reductionism of materialism.