Recognizing and Expressing the Shadow

Astral and paranormal experiences, dreams and visions.
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Smaragd
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Recognizing and Expressing the Shadow

Post by Smaragd »

These things have always nuances of the specific movement, but do you have some general attitudes towards expressing your shadow?

When do you allow it?

How do you go about it, is there some emphasized way you’ve picked up for a conscious reason, or assimilated to according to the surrounding culture? Do you try to process the darkness through the expression, or try to express the feeling as it is but trying to hint this is not the end all be all opinion/attitude/etc., or perhaps there’s sometimes need to bluntly let the shadow come out as it is to get to the bottom of things? Is there some other way that comes to mind?
"Would to God that all the Lord's people were Prophets”, Numbers 11:29 as echoed by William Blake
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RaktaZoci
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Re: Expressing the Shadow

Post by RaktaZoci »

Smaragd wrote: Fri Jun 26, 2020 2:02 pm These things have always nuances of the specific movement, but do you have some general attitudes towards expressing your shadow?
What exactly do you mean by shadow? Does it refer to the Jungian aspect or perhaps some Gestalt-type of thinking? Care to elaborate..? :geek:
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Smaragd
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Re: Expressing the Shadow

Post by Smaragd »

RaktaZoci wrote: Fri Jun 26, 2020 2:56 pm
Smaragd wrote: Fri Jun 26, 2020 2:02 pm These things have always nuances of the specific movement, but do you have some general attitudes towards expressing your shadow?
What exactly do you mean by shadow? Does it refer to the Jungian aspect or perhaps some Gestalt-type of thinking? Care to elaborate..? :geek:
I thought for a moment I should clarify this, but it seems I ignored the impulse. I don't want to bind the word to any tradition particularly, because I don't want to require extensive knowledge or emphasis to one school or doctrine for people to be able to answer the question. What I mean by the shadow is the psychic(?) negative charge we carry within, which reveals weaknessess and troubled parts of our individual construction.
"Would to God that all the Lord's people were Prophets”, Numbers 11:29 as echoed by William Blake
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Soror O
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Re: Expressing the Shadow

Post by Soror O »

I regard shadow as the unwanted in the whole. Thus also so called positive charges; emotions, memories, et.c. can be part of the shadow.

Being partly a quite impulsive extrovert, I sometimes tend to express my shadow first outwardly and reflect on it later. This has been humiliating. And humiliating is good.

I also reflect my being and trace emotions, thoughs et.c. back to their "core components" - which then usually takes me to the shadow.

Acknowledging resistance is crucial part of my shadow work. My shadow has expressed itself also in different forms of idealism.
If you want to reborn, let yourself die.
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Smaragd
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Re: Recognizing and Expressing the Shadow

Post by Smaragd »

Recognizing the shadow is indeed an important part of expressing it, so I’ll now adjust the topic a bit and we can add questions:

How do you define the shadow, what is it in your system, where does it come from?

How do you recognize you are dealing with your shadow; any methods or ingrained fragments of philosophies that help you with this, you’d like to share?
Ave wrote: Fri Jun 26, 2020 4:38 pm I regard shadow as the unwanted in the whole. Thus also so called positive charges; emotions, memories, et.c. can be part of the shadow.
I’ve thought the negative to describe the actual charge the troubled parts in us create, so even if the astral impression is positive, but unwanted, the latter is more defining of the actual polarity of the charge. ”Unwanted in the whole” is a negation already. It seems sometimes these charges change polarity while penetrating certain planes that has a structure for it at that particular moment (including all the massive amount of all sorts of variables).
Ave wrote: Fri Jun 26, 2020 4:38 pm Acknowledging resistance is crucial part of my shadow work. My shadow has expressed itself also in different forms of idealism.
Mine too. These ideal and astral planes mix up in quite a funny way. Someone could argue that true idealism is not based on, and thus not even chosen according to feelings, but I certainly have been there and have been almost like slithering towards the base of knowledge where from idealism can stand on its own and be casted down through the astral to be adapted to living reality. I could say that the shadow in these emotional idealist choices has guided me in this serpentien motion to lift the idealism on its rightful place of balance.
"Would to God that all the Lord's people were Prophets”, Numbers 11:29 as echoed by William Blake
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Soror O
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Re: Recognizing and Expressing the Shadow

Post by Soror O »

Smaragd wrote: Fri Jun 26, 2020 5:40 pm I’ve thought the negative to describe the actual charge the troubled parts in us create, so even if the astral impression is positive, but unwanted, the latter is more defining of the actual polarity of the charge. ”Unwanted in the whole” is a negation already. It seems sometimes these charges change polarity while penetrating certain planes that has a structure for it at that particular moment (including all the massive amount of all sorts of variables).
Yes, I also think that the resistance makes the charge negative regardless.

Mmm. I maybe came up with a more fitting definition for shadow for myself, ie. "what is not integrated". But is it just then same as "(beings of) the unconscious"? But if resistance is an inherent part of the shadow mechanism, how can one resist something which one is not conscious of? Maybe it's because consciousness is a spectrum phenomenom (like all phenomena, imo) - so one can be just enough conscious to resist, but not enough conscious to integrate.

Shadow recognition, some clues how I've realized that there's some serious shadow work to do:
- If things aren't flowing, if the stream has been blocked - natura vitality is "on the hold"
- If I am (or certain people around me are) experiencing chronic pain - mental, physiological, psychic -whatsoever
- I don't get along with myself, people, or the world

What tools I've used in shadow work:
- Consciousness skills: meditation, yoga
- Different kind of therapies: psychotherapy, rosen therapy, hypnotherapy, group therapy, TRE-method
- Relationships
- Active imagination
- Religious and philosophic contextualization - satanism
If you want to reborn, let yourself die.
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Soror O
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Re: Recognizing and Expressing the Shadow

Post by Soror O »

Ave wrote: Fri Jun 26, 2020 8:25 pm
Smaragd wrote: Fri Jun 26, 2020 5:40 pm I’ve thought the negative to describe the actual charge the troubled parts in us create, so even if the astral impression is positive, but unwanted, the latter is more defining of the actual polarity of the charge. ”Unwanted in the whole” is a negation already. It seems sometimes these charges change polarity while penetrating certain planes that has a structure for it at that particular moment (including all the massive amount of all sorts of variables).
Yes, I also think that the resistance makes the charge negative regardless.

Mmm. I maybe came up with a more fitting definition for shadow for myself, ie. "what is not integrated". But is it just then same as "(beings of) the unconscious"? But if resistance is an inherent part of the shadow mechanism, how can one resist something which one is not conscious of? Maybe it's because consciousness is a spectrum phenomenom (like all phenomena, imo) - so one can be just enough conscious to resist, but not enough conscious to integrate.

Shadow recognition, some clues how I've realized that there's some serious shadow work to do:
- If things aren't flowing, if the stream has been blocked - natura vitality is "on the hold"
- If I am (or certain people around me are) experiencing chronic pain - mental, physiological, psychic -whatsoever
- I don't get along with myself, people, or the world

What tools I've used in shadow work:
- Consciousness skills: meditation, yoga
- Different kind of therapies: psychotherapy, rosen therapy, hypnotherapy, group therapy, TRE-method
- Relationships
- Active imagination
- Religious and philosophic contextualization - satanism
Answering my own, posts as always, but: Posts like this can give an expression that one has figured it all out. I have to make this self evident point: This is most certainly not the case here. More over: this post of mine begun to feel close to hilarious, as I just remembered/ realized how my shadow has played me for a fool about for two months for now. No amount of therapy can make up a vigilent and honest intellect and an open heart...
If you want to reborn, let yourself die.
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Insanus
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Re: Recognizing and Expressing the Shadow

Post by Insanus »

a) don't judge your desire
b) don't act it out in a way that harms people.
I know that it's the shadow if either one seems overwhelmingly difficult. Then it's just about being honest and compassionate about it to yourself and others.
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Nefastos
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Re: Recognizing and Expressing the Shadow

Post by Nefastos »

I think that we are unable to notice the shadow directly, for this is part of its being, and how it has come to being. Even in cases where we stop to reflect and start operating our intelligence around the black spot, the precise problem avoids our grasp. We can only reach the outer parts of our shadow, and even those indirectly. Only in great renovations of our life, meaning smaller and greater initiations and the challenges belonging to them, we are able to actually meet our shadow. Some part of it gets embraced in great moments of enlightenment, but some essence will necessarily remain even then.
Smaragd wrote: Fri Jun 26, 2020 5:40 pmHow do you define the shadow, what is it in your system, where does it come from?

It is the part I cannot see of my own soul's failings. It is the condensed (even though illusionary in a substantial sense) darkness from this lack of vision of mine, lightless parts of my misunderstandings, which lay heavier with every mistake I make in that direction. It comes from my past of wrong emphases and mistaken ideas, which I have taken as my one-eyed basis of thought & feelings not wholly worked through. Bulwer-Lytton's "Guardian of the Threshold", the term later adopted by the theosophists, is the shadow that is older than our present being. It presupposes mind that is older than the present body, but the thing is the same whether one believes in one time incarnation only: in that case, the shadow starts its being with our childhood traumas, and how they turn our mind always into one or other non-optimal direction.

Smaragd wrote: Fri Jun 26, 2020 5:40 pmHow do you recognize you are dealing with your shadow;

Like said, I believe that this cannot be done directly. Feelings of great uncomfortability or anger may point this way, but it is not said that they do; it is equally possible that a person feels amusement and thrill when he is succumbing to the lures of the shadow, that actually leads him into hell, for that hell either seems beckoning or is confused with something else totally. I spoke of this extremely hard to grasp nature of the shadow in several parts of Fosforos, e.g.:

Fosforos wrote:Satanism will bring forth any denied otherness as long as it exists to be addressed. If we aim towards the spirit in too unilateral a way, Satanism represents matter for us, and vice versa. If we are too intellectual, it represents emotion for us, and the other way around. If we are slothful, it is passionate and fiery. If we are passionate, it obstructs us as inertia. It must manifest itself, for the totality always manifests as an absolute. Only when we have realized the subtle unity between the self and otherness with the help of knowledge, and when strife and love have been released from the prison we have built around ourselves, this Adversary – disharmony – dissolves into us and loses its ability to cause harm. (Discordamelior: For the Reader)

Smaragd wrote: Fri Jun 26, 2020 5:40 pmany methods or ingrained fragments of philosophies that help you with this, you’d like to share?

Those of us who think they have tamed the shadows are wrong, as are those who think they have avoided them, locked them away, made total peace with them, and so on. This "Old Enemy" that a Satanist tries to befriend to a point is something that is always the thing we ourselves are not. As long as we are human beings, or almost any beings at all, we cast a shadow, and that is nothing to be ashamed of. The reason of shame would be to cease working with one's shortcomings. No one is perfect, and our flaws are not made by ourselves only, but also by the universe which nurtures us with challenges.

EDIT: Missed the original question:
Smaragd wrote: Fri Jun 26, 2020 2:02 pmWhen do you allow it?

I strongly disagree with the idea that the shadow should at some point being held totally out of things, or totally let into things. Rather, in everything we do, I think we should try to take our shadow part into consideration. In that way, it will not devour us in our weak moment.
Faust: "Lo contempla. / Ei muove in tortuosa spire / e s'avvicina lento alla nostra volta. / Oh! se non erro, / orme di foco imprime al suol!"
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Smaragd
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Re: Recognizing and Expressing the Shadow

Post by Smaragd »

Insanus wrote: Sat Jun 27, 2020 9:11 am a) don't judge your desire
b) don't act it out in a way that harms people.
I know that it's the shadow if either one seems overwhelmingly difficult. Then it's just about being honest and compassionate about it to yourself and others.
This is very important down to earth base. But what if it is not enough? Expressing the shadow is such a delicate process because the shadow is always not wanted and difficult and it tends to involve other people. Even if one expresses it the most delicate and intentionally constructive way (ofcourse some may interpret such expression dishonest, requiring more blunt ways), it usually carries some kind of threat with it that questions, for example, the possibility of a fantasized future of a relationship or trust in the relationship and the partner. This is one facet of why I’m in my subjective experience feeling the need to start emphasizing the first option of the three ways of expressing the shadow I mentioned: processing the shadow through the expression, and doing that in quite a readily chewed way.

I recognize in myself an impulse to pin my need for such emphasis on cultural adolescence, that we have not talked and understood enough of the concept of the shadow that we could work with it. But this seems a bit like passing the blame, which is easier to pass to larger bodies than for an individual other. In a strict occult sense I question if there really is cultural causes at all, because 1) my view of the culture as it is bases on my subjective experience, and 2) culture could be seen as a sheet over which the cause and effect chains are projected and interpreted from. Thus it is really a demon behind the sheet that binds certain cultures in to certain problematics.

1) Here we also come to the idea in occultism that the world we face is built by and for ourselves. It is the mystery we are to face and which presents mysteries for our individual subjective experiences as a limited whole to endlessly bow down at the feet of the Goddess and her bloodlust.
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Nefastos wrote: Sat Jun 27, 2020 11:04 am I think that we are unable to notice the shadow directly, for this is part of its being, and how it has come to being. Even in cases where we stop to reflect and start operating our intelligence around the black spot, the precise problem avoids our grasp. We can only reach the outer parts of our shadow, and even those indirectly. Only in great renovations of our life, meaning smaller and greater initiations and the challenges belonging to them, we are able to actually meet our shadow. Some part of it gets embraced in great moments of enlightenment, but some essence will necessarily remain even then.
This rings true. The negative pole is alway in our backside and has to be sort of casted in to the visible world through interactions in life.
"Would to God that all the Lord's people were Prophets”, Numbers 11:29 as echoed by William Blake
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