The Shadow Knows.

Carl Jung ascribed the root of human evil to "the refusal to meet the shadow." By 'the shadow," Jung meant the part of our mind containing those things that we would rather not own up to, that we are continually trying to hide from ourselves and others and sweep under the rug of our consciousness.

Most of us when pushed up against the wall by evidence of our own sins, failures, or imperfections, will acknowledge our shadow.

Buy the use of the word "refusal," Jung was implying something far more active.
Those who have crossed over the line that separates sin from evil are characterized most by their absolute refusal to tolerate a sense of their own sinfulness.

This is because their central defect is not that they have no consciousness but that they refuse to bear it pain. In other words, it is not so much the sin itself but the refusal to acknowledge it that makes it evil.

In fact, the evil are often highly intelligent people, who may be quite conscious in most respects but have a very specific unwillingness to acknowledge their shadow.


The briefest definition of evil known is that it is "militant ignorance." But evil is not general ignorance; more specifically, it is militant ignorance of the shadow.

Those who are evil refuse to bear the pain of guilt or to allow the Shadow into consciousness and "meet" it. Instead, they will set about - often at great effort - militantly trying to destroy the evidence of their sin or anyone who speaks of it or represents it. And in this act of destruction, their evil is committed.

 It is not pleasant to be aware of oneself as naturally lazy, ignorant, self-centered being that rather routinely betray its Creator, its fellow creatures, and even its own best interests.

Yet, this unpleasant sense of personal failure and inadequacy is paradoxically, the greatest blessing We The People can possess.



How and why you say and ask? Unpleasant though it may be, the gift of appropriate guilt is precisely what keeps national sins from getting out of hand. It is our most effective safeguard against our own proclivity for evil.

Among the reasons for becoming more conscious is to avoid becoming evil.

Fortunately, the truly evil represent only a minority of the human population. 

All psychological disorders are basically disorders of consciousness.

They are not rooted in the unconscious but in a conscious mind that refuses to think and is unwilling to deal with certain issues, bear certain feeling, or tolerate pain.

These issues, feelings, or desires are in the unconscious only because a pain-avoiding mind has thrust them there.

Where the degree of consciousness can be inherently hard to measure,We The People can speculate from ones behavior.

But perhaps the measure of someones degree of consciousness can be best found through ones general approach to thinking.


For example, a person who is oriented more toward thinking simplistically has a lesser degree of consciousness that a person who thinks with Integrity.

In this way, thinking and consciousness are inextricably locked together in a parallel relationship.
Consciousness is the foundation of all thinking, and thinking is the foundation of all consciousness. 
Anytime there is a failure in thinking, their is corresponding deficit is a person's level of consciousness. 

Thus, all human behavior - the good, the bad, and the indifferent - is determined by the extent, or lack thereof, of the quality of thinking and consciousness involved.

In conclusion, under valid medical based argument, America's 116th Congress must decide upon what comes down to these fundamental simple Englishes: "When you're stuck. there's no need for therapy when your clearly growing well without it. But when your not growing, when were struck and spinning our wheels, we're obviously in a condition of inefficiency.


And whenever there's a lack of efficiency their is a potentially unnecessary lack of competence.

So there is yet another reason to seek greater consciousness.

It is the foundation of mental and spiritual growth.

And it is through this growth the we become ever more competent.

True competence is more about growing in wisdom than accumulating mere knowledge.


It entails striving toward a psychological and spiritual maturity that results in real personal power.

John 2:5. Mary sees a need and appeals to Her Son to satisfy it. He does it.

Share: M. Scott Peck, M.D. - The Road Less Traveled and Beyond, Spiritual Growth in an Age of Anxiety.