Shadow, Evil, and Individuation: Jung’s View of the Devil

Welcome to this Jungian life. Three good friends and Jungian analysts, Lisa Marciano, Deborah Stewart, and Joseph Lee invite you to join them for an intimate and honest conversation that brings a psychological perspective to important issues of the day. I'm Lisa Marciano, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Philadelphia. I'm Joseph Lee, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Virginia Beach, Virginia. I'm Deborah Stewart, a Jungian analyst on Cape Cod. So the idea of the devil is ubiquitous. This idea of evil personified shows up in ancient cultures, in modern religions, across history, but the devil is less a monster than a mirror. So it crystallizes humanity's intuition that there is a source of destruction that is not wholly outside us, And every culture needs an image that gathers its moral shadow, the hunger for domination, the delight in cruelty, the seductive charm of power. So the devil becomes that image, the accuser, the trickster, the rebel, the scapegoat, the teacher of limits. So historically, he grows from the Hebrew, the divine persecutor, and in Christianity, the cosmic opponent. And, finally, for us as Jungians, a symbol of psychological conflict. In the modern era, we may not believe that the devil has horns, and yet the archetype survives in us. So Jung saw the devil as the psyche's way of dramatizing evil as an autonomous reality within us because the shadow demands recognition, and to repress or externalize him is to become possessed by what we deny. So we're going to tear away our denial around this and really stand in front of the devil in celebration of Halloween. Right. Yeah. And and this perhaps is the time of year when we're encouraged to, approach some of these darker forces in the psyche in a spirit of curiosity and fun. Yeah. Devilishness. Yeah. What a big topic. Right? I think we all dove into that this topic this week and, found there is a lot to say on it. So, Deb, I think, you did a huge amount of research on the development and evolution historically of the devil. There's so much to say. It'd be great to have you put that in the table to start with. You know, it was it was fascinating, to discover, something that might have been at the very fringes of my awareness. But, basically, what is the history of this image, of this concept, of this idea? And I'll I'll start with, what Jung says, as a sort of umbrella for the all of these concepts, which is, binarius, Latin for binaries, polarities, opposites. And what Jung says is that that is the origin of all evil, which I think is absolutely fascinating because it takes us to creation myths that most universally involve separation. Separation, for example, of the earth and sky, separation of light and dark, the lovely passage in, Genesis about naming all the animals. We categorize, we separate, and we also have opposites. And then there is conflict …