Scan barcode
Reviews
Meeting the Shadow of Spirituality: The Hidden Power of Darkness on the Path by Connie Zweig
spiderlilies's review against another edition
2.0
This is an anthology of 65 different essays, which I find hard to rate as a whole because there are a couple decent essays mixed in with the garbage. Essay 44 from Audre Lorde was a highlight and the main reason I decided to give 2 stars instead of 1. I'm going to look into more of her work for sure.
The rest, however, was steeped in too much spiritualism, religion, and dream interpretation for my liking and many of these essays were the same points restated in different manners.
Then there were essays that felt actively harmful, such as the implications of a victim of bullying having a shadow self that calls out to his bullies and essay 58, which says that guilt, fear, anxiety, and depression are all "the result of my mentally pinching myself...this directly implies, incredible as it may seem, that I want this painful symptom to be here" and "if you are depressed, try to be more depressed."
This followed by essay 59, which I had to laugh at when it suggested that our unutilized artistic energy is going to be used by Reagan to nuke other countries. A very wtf??? moment.
That said, the Jungian concept of a shadow-self is intriguing and I think it's important to acknowledge parts of ourselves that we repress and to do self-reflection as much as we can, but this book was not it for me.
The rest, however, was steeped in too much spiritualism, religion, and dream interpretation for my liking and many of these essays were the same points restated in different manners.
Then there were essays that felt actively harmful, such as the implications of a victim of bullying having a shadow self that calls out to his bullies and essay 58, which says that guilt, fear, anxiety, and depression are all "the result of my mentally pinching myself...this directly implies, incredible as it may seem, that I want this painful symptom to be here" and "if you are depressed, try to be more depressed."
This followed by essay 59, which I had to laugh at when it suggested that our unutilized artistic energy is going to be used by Reagan to nuke other countries. A very wtf??? moment.
That said, the Jungian concept of a shadow-self is intriguing and I think it's important to acknowledge parts of ourselves that we repress and to do self-reflection as much as we can, but this book was not it for me.
fcannon's review against another edition
3.0
I was expecting more, but these essays are very short and you can skip around to find something that clicks for you. 'A Little Book on the Human Shadow' was much more interesting for me.
More...