one of the things young said about the
shadow and this is I would say one of
the primary impediments to enlightenment
is that if you start looking at your
motives for for misbehaving and and I
mean by that something very specific I
mean I don't mean that you're
misbehaving by someone else's standards
I don't mean that I mean when you know
by your own standards that you're doing
something that's devious or malevolent
or underhanded you know it and you still
do it so it's your own judgment you're
bringing to bear on yourself if you look
at why you're doing that the longer you
look at it the deeper a hole you dig and
so this is that motif of Dante's Inferno
fundamentally so Dante's Inferno is a
story about I can't remember his name
unfortunately might be Dante in fact
although I don't remember
he's led into hell by Virgil who's an
ancient who is an ancient philosopher
thinker and he'll has levels and so the
outer level is it is the Christianized
version of hell because there's hell's
of all sorts but this is a Christianized
version and so the on the outermost
levels of Hell which is sort of like
normal life are the ancient philosophers
and they're still in hell because they
weren't Christian but it's kind of like
it's like cheap motel hell instead of
the full pit thing you know and so then
Dante goes deeper and deeper into Hell
until it gets right to the bottom of it
and it's been a while since I read it
but if I remember correctly Satan
himself is encased in ice at the bottom
of Hell surrounded by people who betray
others and so Dante's notion was that
the worst of all possible violations of
moral behavior was betrayal and that
they're in the deepest levels of Hell
and I really like that idea I think it's
true because if you trust me then you're
manifesting the necessary courage that
puts someone through life you know if
you're smart you don't trust because
you're naive you trust me knowing that
I've full of snakes and so are you but
maybe we could cooperate and move things
along nicely you know and we could
reduce each other to the word to
word and we could cooperate but you're
awake you know and then I betray that
then I'm undermining your necessary
faith in life and humanity and you can
really hurt someone that way like the
sometimes it's self betrayal but you can
really do someone in that we can really
traumatize them they can so that they
can't recover and so it's a really
terrible thing to do to someone and
maybe it's the worst thing and that was
Dante's idea and it's tied in that makes
very interesting reading if you read it
at the same time as Milton's Paradise
Lost because those are metaphysical
explorations this is what they are their
metaphysical explorations of the
terrible places you can end up and that
people do end up and also a metaphysical
explanation of what spirit takes you
there so because you might ask well why
do you betray someone and that is a deep
question and so you'll have your
specific reasons but under that there'll
be some other reasons and under that
there'll be some other reasons and under
that there'll be some other reasons and
if you go all the way to the bottom you
come up with the ultimate reasons why
you betrayed someone and when you look
at that that will not be pretty that's
when your proclivity for evil let's say
unites with the general human proclivity
for evil and you discover just exactly
what you're capable of and so Jung's
notion was that well that was a full
encounter with the shadow which is I
suppose partly what this course is about
because one of the things that I believe
I told you at the beginning was that I
was going to try to help you understand
how it might be that you could be an
arse wits guard and to really understand
that that's a horrifying thing to
understand but I'll tell you if you want
to grow some teeth that's a really good
thing to understand so we were talking
about your capacity to negotiate before
like if you aren't a monster you cannot
negotiate but if you if you got that
under control then you don't have to be
a monster it's really paradoxical so if
you're just naive well you end up in
jail and a marionette master has control
over you that's not helpful so that's
not good that just means you're
useless and you can be manipulating go
out of your way to be malevolent but
it's mostly because you just don't have
the skills the organizational skills or
or even the depth to do that you know
you're good because you're harmless
that's that's not good that's easily
manipulated and so you think well how do
you get out of that well partly you
watch people it because you know what
they're like because you know what
you're like and that but you also know
what you could do and would do if you
were pushed and so you don't have to
show much of that when you're
negotiating with someone for them to
take you really seriously so it's a
strange thing you know but one of the
things you pointed out too was that what
you most need to know will be found
where you least want to look and that's
because you haven't already looked there
and so it's a little different for
everyone right because your particular
place you don't want to look isn't going
to be the same as your place but you're
going to have a place you don't want to
look and what you haven't discovered
that's where it is and so that's all
partly going to be discovered by you
looking at what you're capable of what
you're truly capable of