Resistance to the sway of unconscious archetypes can be done — according to C. G. Jung — both individually and socially. That is, by the individual uncovering one’s own shadow, i.e. bringing it to consciousness, and then by the same individual exposing the shadow-side of a society, i.e. the negative archetypes that are acting up within that society.
Jung’s position can be probably best summarized by a well-known Gospel teaching: Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye (Mt 7:3-5).
A Jungian interpretation of these verses goes like this: Stop seeing evil in others, and do not be a moralist crusader eager to correct other people’s behavior; take care first of what is in the shadow of your consciousness — in terms of ideas, behaviors, attitudes — which you can only dimly see inside yourself and yet is very active and blocks your vision of the outside world; then, do help out your society.
Jung was not an activist, and one can hardly find positive references in his work to movements of solidarity among the oppressed, but he was not at all disinterested in social realities.
As renowned Jungian analyst Murray Stein writes, Jung was not a quietist about evil in the larger world, in politics, in economics, or on the stage of world affairs. (…) He felt deeply that fanatical ideologies of any sort were demonic because they depended for their existence upon identification with archetypal images and upon grandiose inflations, which crippled individual accountability and destroyed moral consciousness.
Jung’s suggestion to start working from the individual consciousness sounds impractical, of course, especially when the house is on fire, but at the same time it sounds correct, after we have witnessed in the West in the past two centuries or more throngs of people who strongly believed in their ideologies and were intent on changing the world while being unprepared to face the complexity of reality, within and without themselves.
The proverbial evangelical log is still very much an unavoidable psychological reality.
Our present situation is not, of course, determined by the fight between opposed ideologies. We are in the next stage, which Jungians correctly characterize as being in the grip of the archetype of the Antichrist.
But if we want to try to do something about the horror we are living through, it would be a mistake simply to advocate for a reversal to the preceding situation, that of confrontational ideologies (“culture wars”). A good deal of shadow-work at the personal level, as well as at the level of activist groups, appears to be essential.
Shadow-work is not done to clean up and therefore be better than all others, i.e. to become morally pure and devoid of blame. This would be a major misunderstanding of Jung’s lesson. Shadow-work surely makes one stop projecting on others, that is, finding in them the vices that one is actually prone to. Yet it ought to be done not to become “good” but to gain consistency, clarity, and strength as actors on the life stage that we have been given not for our own sake only, but for the sake of the whole.
See Matthew Fox, Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality
Also see Fox, Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society
Also see Fox, Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election
Also see Fox, Meister Eckhart: Mystic-Warrior for Our Time
Banner Image: Facing the shadow within: “Dark Mirroring.” Photo by Claus Tom Christensen on Flickr.
Queries for Contemplation
How much is shadow-work part of your practice? Have you find issues in understanding or practicing it?
Related Readings by Matthew Fox
Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality
Matthew Fox lays out a whole new direction for Christianity—a direction that is in fact very ancient and very grounded in Jewish thinking (the fact that Jesus was a Jew is often neglected by Christian theology): the Four Paths of Creation Spirituality, the Vias Positiva, Negativa, Creativa and Transformativa in an extended and deeply developed way.
“Original Blessing makes available to the Christian world and to the human community a radical cure for all dark and derogatory views of the natural world wherever these may have originated.” –Thomas Berry, author, The Dream of the Earth; The Great Work; co-author, The Universe Story
Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society
Visionary theologian and best-selling author Matthew Fox offers a new theology of evil that fundamentally changes the traditional perception of good and evil and points the way to a more enlightened treatment of ourselves, one another, and all of nature. In comparing the Eastern tradition of the 7 chakras to the Western tradition of the 7 capital sins, Fox allows us to think creatively about our capacity for personal and institutional evil and what we can do about them.
“A scholarly masterpiece embodying a better vision and depth of perception far beyond the grasp of any one single science. A breath-taking analysis.” — Diarmuid O’Murchu, author of Quantum Theology: Spiritual Implications of the New Physics
Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election
Matthew Fox tells us that he had always shied away from using the term “Anti-Christ” because it was so often used to spread control and fear. However, given today’s rise of authoritarianism and forces of democracide, ecocide, and christofascism, he turns the tables in this book employing the archetype for the cause of justice, democracy, and a renewed Earth and humanity.
From the Foreword: If there was ever a time, a moment, for examining the archetype of the Antichrist, it is now…Read this book with an open mind. Good and evil are real forces in our world. ~~ Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit and Conversations with the Divine.
For immediate access to Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election, order the e-book with 10 full-color prints from Amazon HERE.
To get a print-on-demand paperback copy with black & white images, order from Amazon HERE or IUniverse HERE.
To receive a limited-edition, full-color paperback copy, order from MatthewFox.org HERE.
Order the audiobook HERE for immediate download.
Meister Eckhart: A Mystic-Warrior For Our Time
While Matthew Fox recognizes that Meister Eckhart has influenced thinkers throughout history, he also wants to introduce Eckhart to today’s activists addressing contemporary crises. Toward that end, Fox creates dialogues between Eckhart and Carl Jung, Thich Nhat Hanh, Rabbi Heschel, Black Elk, Karl Marx, Rumi, Adrienne Rich, Dorothee Soelle, David Korten, Anita Roddick, Lily Yeh, M.C. Richards, and many others.
“Matthew Fox is perhaps the greatest writer on Meister Eckhart that has ever existed. (He) has successfully bridged a gap between Eckhart as a shamanistic personality and Eckhart as a post-modern mentor to the Inter-faith movement, to reveal just how cosmic Eckhart really is, and how remarkably relevant to today’s religious crisis! ” — Steven Herrmann, Author of Spiritual Democracy: The Wisdom of Early American Visionaries for the Journey Forward
7 thoughts on “The Speck and the Log in Jungian Terms”
What we look to avoid is in ‘our Shadow’ but it is the ‘One Thing’ that we need –
“Invite ‘the Shadow’ Into Our Lives ‘Front and Centre’ ” [Previously posted elsewhere]
Christ lurks in our shadow asking to come out. The ‘invitation to the banquet’ and ‘Come follow Me’ are paradoxically our invitations to Jesus the Christ to ‘join with us’. Out of love and our free will, we are to ask Him to come out of our shadow and join us in the forefront of our lives – Front and Centre. Don’t think it or ‘our bad side’ resides in the shadow, but rather our full and complete life in Christ. You will see that Jesus, His holiness and Sacred Self reside in our shadow. Either in ignorance or self-deceit, we repress and avoid what is right and true for us.
Love and Life in all abundance resides in our shadow self. Riches and all good things reside in our shadow including the faith and ability to endure all things. Wisdom is but a step away. The Teacher is but a step away. The Healer is but a step away. Our Lover is but a step away. The Truth is but a step away. Rather than run away from it, we invite ‘the Shadow’ into our lives ‘front and centre’. Nothing can be more real for us than what resides in ‘the Shadow’. – BB 05 27 2025.
The human condition is that we are conscious in ourselves, centered in ourselves. Our senses, the raw way we experience the world, are aware only of what WE see, smell, touch, hear, and taste. Without our ability to learn, think, reflect, or perceive, we are left totally self centered. As I grow and experience others, family and society requires me to begin to acknowledge others’ experience of the world. I can choose to remain totally self centered or begin the journey to value the experience of others and of the whole. My shadow is my self that retains the belief that only my life matters. It takes effort and attention to see the deceptive nature of this which works to dress itself up and appear acceptable to others. Seeing it honestly for what it is, for me is the key to learning to live life for the goodness of the whole, not just for my own enrichment and satisfaction. I strive to take the teaching of Jesus Christ and others as a guide to this work. That is my current understanding of “shadow work”.
For me shadow work must start with a deliberate sense of humility.
It is a simple starting point, often overlooked in the practice of self examination, and critical thinking. I feel many skip this step and
leap ahead to analyze and probe into logical reasoning almost like a legal
practice.
Very good DM today about trying to understand Our personal and societal shadows which C.G. Jung wrote about and informing us, along with many other mystics in human history, that they’re interrelated and essential in becoming more fully conscious on Our spiritual journeys towards more holistic personal and societal LOVING DIVERSE ONENESS with Sacred Mother Earth, one another as Eternal Souls, and All physical/nonphysical spiritual dimensions and Beings in Our Sacred Evolving Co-Creation~Cosmos and eternal Angelic spiritual realms… COMPASSIONATE COSMIC CHRIST (BUDDHA) CONSCIOUSNESS….
An unthinkable and uplifting inversion of the chronic “speck and log” attribution by the red-capped tribe makes headlines today: sugared European coke is better than corn-syrup sweetened American coke… Theirs tasting better than ours surely is unbearable ! Did the log really fall-off ?
Thank you, GG. I have always cherished this teaching especially because it is so true–we’d always rather find fault with others rather than look at our own shadow ; it is spiritual laziness. The 4th step of the 12 step program, making a fearless and searching oral inventory of ourselves, is all about shadow work. I have tried to do this off and on and find with time that the process is effective–but it is a process, not an event, for me. When I am in the attitude of self honesty, my compassion is freed up for everyone and everything. As gdm points out, the process must start with humility, just as each step in a 12 step builds on those before, and the first step is always admitting one’s powerlessness–humility and dependence on a higher power.
I don’t know if this qualifies as shadow work, but here’s something.
The enneagram points out that, as a four (“the artist” or “tragic romantic”) it’s my job to work on equanimity–valuing others as much as I value myself and eliminating envy of others when they succeed at something I’d like to succeed at. Last month, I had the joy of going on retreat with Ali and John Philip Newell and 39 others on the Isle of Iona. At the ocean, we each chose a rock representing something we’d like to rid ourselves of. I chose a green rock representing envy and, as we were asked to do, tossed it into the ocean. Eliminating envy from my consciousness has been a lifelong undertaking, and I’ve made and continue to make progress. Because of the spiritual practice we did on Iona, at this moment I feel very little envy of others or other circumstances. That’s for now. May that continue and may I be conscious of it and work to eliminate it if and when it rears its head.