In Western psychology, CG Jung has emphasised the reality of the Shadow. This appears precisely at the beginning of what he calls the process of individuation, of which the end is the discovery of Self and the reconciliation of a person with himself and with the world. The Shadow appears in dreams under the most vary¬ing forms, but always corresponds to something which we have refused or which we have been incapable of integrating in our personality. In a certain way, the Shadow represents temptation, but, from another standpoint, it corresponds with our most difficult and serious task. The figures in the dream, or the phantasms which give expression to it, are often the image, sometimes composite, of people who in real life represent precisely that which we condemn with indignation or hold in dread. Thus the Shadow has always a character, which is, if not immoral, at least amoral. It can express certain rejected or suppressed desires, but its roots are nevertheless extra-individual. Behind the images which it borrows from real persons whom we know, the dream allows us to discern forces, mythical or collective, which can take on a demoniac and magical aspect. But it is at the mo¬ment when we discover the extra-individual origin of the Shadow that we become conscious of his ambiguous character and of his infinite possibilities of metamor¬phosis. The dreaded Magician is prone at this level to turn himself into the seduc¬tive young man. The devil can here return again to the angel. In these depths, all becomes possible once more, and the dreaded forces are exactly those which permit us the greatest ascent.

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