Shadow

The Shadow is the dark region of the personality which is unknown and unrecognised by the ego.

The endless series of shadow and Doppelganger figures in mythology, fairy tales and literature ranges from Caine and Edom, by way of Judas and Hagen, to Stevenson's Mr. Hyde and the ugliest man of Nietzsche; again and again figures have appeared and made their bow before human consciousness, but the psychological meaning of this archetype of the adversary has not yet dawned upon mankind.

The shadow is the other side. It is the expression of our own imperfection and earthliness, the negative which is incompatible with the absolute values; it is our inferior corporeality in contradistinction to the absoluteness and eternity of a soul which 'does not belong to this world'. But it can also appear in the opposite capacity as 'spirit' for instance when the conscious mind only recognises the material values of this life. The shadow represents the uniqueness and transitoriness of our nature; it is our own state of limitation and subjection of the conditions of space and time. At the same time, however, it forms a part of the nuclear structure of our individuality.