Introduction to Maximum Advantage Collection by Travis B. Part 1

"..all...attempts have proved singularly ineffective, and will do so long as we try to convince ourselves and the world that it is only they (i.e., our opponents) who are wrong. It would be much more to the point for us to make a serious attempt to recognize our shadow and its nefarious doings. . If we could see our shadow (the dark side of our nature), we should be immune to any moral and mental infection and insinuation. As matters now stand, we lay ourselves open to every infection, because we are really doing practically the same thing as they. Only we have the additional disadvantage that we neither see nor want to understand what we ourselves are doing, under the cover of good manners."

(Carl Jung in Man and his Symbols, p. 73)

Carl Jung's above explanation of the Shadow archetype proposes his belief that man's search for meaning is directly inhibited by his own natural, and repressed conflicts. These conflicts have an influential and in many instances irrepressible influence on our conscious thought and action. Our ability to overcome our own individual or cultural shadow requires not only the knowledge of our culturally and self- perceived weaknesses, but the integration of these characteristics into our conscious and operational schemas. What this extract does not properly convey is Jung's conception of the archetype as the symbolic and historical manifestation of our subconscious contents. Jung believed that through dreams these symbols, or archetypes, present themselves as a representational mental image of our repressed thoughts, feelings, memories, heritage, and beliefs. With the appearance of the shadow, as well as other archetypes, Jung believed that he was then able to interpret the meaning of his client's dream and consequently assist them in processing their repressed conflicts.

The crux of SRL's argument, from the first section of his book, rests on the recognition and acknowledgment of Jung's shadow archetype as an influence behind our culture's development. SRL does not propose that culture is represented within the archetypal imagery of the collective unconscious', but instead utilizes the translational platform of the archetype to convey certain social movements that have been overtly observed within the realm of historical development. As an expression of these currents, our culture's archetypal shadow is, according to SRL, a direct expression of the "Herd" (or group) mentality that governs society's thought, beliefs, and actions.