The 50th Law (with 50 Cent)

Projection: This is by far the most common way of dealing with
our Shadow, because it offers almost daily release. We cannot admit to
ourselves certain desires—for sex, for money, for power, for superiority
in some area—and so instead we project those desires onto others.
Sometimes we simply imagine and completely project these qualities
out of nothing, in order to judge and condemn people. Other times we
find people who express such taboo desires in some form, and we
exaggerate them in order to justify our dislike or hatred.
For instance, we accuse another person in some conflict of having
authoritarian desires. In fact, they are simply defending themselves.
We are the ones who secretly wish to dominate, but if we see it in the
other side first, we can vent our repressed desire in the form of a
judgment and justify our own authoritarian response. Let us say we
repressed early on assertive and spontaneous impulses so natural to
the child. Unconsciously we wish to have back such qualities, but we
cannot overcome our internal taboos. We look out for those who are
less inhibited, more assertive and open with their ambition. We
exaggerate these tendencies. Now we can despise them, and in
thinking about them, give vent to what we cannot admit to ourselves or
about ourselves.
The great nineteenth-century German composer Richard Wagner
frequently expressed anti-Semitic sentiments. He blamed Jews for
ruining Western music with their eclectic tastes, sentimentality, and
emphasis on technical brilliance. He yearned for a more pure German
music, which he would create. Most of what he blamed Jews for in
music was completely made up. Yet Wagner, strangely enough, had
many of the same qualities that he seemed to hate in Jews. His tastes
were quite eclectic. He had sentimental tendencies. Many of the
pianists and conductors he worked with were Jewish, because of their
technical proficiency.
Remember: behind any vehement hatred is often a secret and very
unpalatable envy of the hated person or people. It is only through such
hate that it can be released from the unconscious in some form.

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Consider yourself a detective when it comes to piecing together
people’s Shadow. Through the various signs you pick up, you can fill in
the outlines of their repressed desires and impulses. This will allow you
to anticipate future leakage and odd Shadow-like behavior. Rest
assured such behavior never occurs just once, and it will tend to pop
up in different areas. If, for instance, you pick up bullying tendencies
in the way someone argues, you will also see it in other activities.
You might entertain the notion that this concept of the Shadow is
somewhat antiquated. After all, we live in a much more rational,
scientifically oriented culture today. People are more transparent and
self-aware than ever, we might say. We are much less repressed than
our ancestors, who had to deal with all sorts of pressures from
organized religion. The truth, however, might very well be the
opposite. In many ways we are more split than ever between our
conscious, social selves and our unconscious Shadow. We live in a
culture that enforces powerful codes of correctness that we must abide
by or face the shaming that is now so common on social media. We are
supposed to live up to ideals of selflessness, which are impossible for
us because we are not angels. All of this drives the dark side of our
personalities even further underground.
We can read signs of this in how deeply and secretly we are all
drawn to the dark side in our culture. We thrill at watching shows in
which various Machiavellian characters manipulate, deceive, and
dominate. We lap up stories in the news of those who have been caught
acting out in some way and enjoy the ensuing shaming. Serial killers
and diabolical cult leaders enthrall us. With these shows and the news
we can always become moralistic and talk of how much we despise
such villains, but the truth is that the culture constantly feeds us these
figures because we are hungry for expressions of the dark side. All of
this provides a degree of release from the tension we experience in
having to play the angel and seem so correct.
These are relatively harmless forms of release, but there are more
dangerous ones, particularly in the realm of politics. We find ourselves
increasingly drawn to leaders who give vent to this dark side, who
express the hostility and resentment we all secretly feel. They say
things we would dare not say. In the safety of the group and rallied to
some cause, we have license to project and vent our spleen on various
convenient scapegoats. By idealizing the leader and the cause, we are
now free to act in ways we would normally shy away from as

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individuals. These demagogues are adept at exaggerating the threats
we face, painting everything in black-and-white terms. They stir up the
fears, insecurities, and desires for revenge that have gone underground
but are waiting at any moment to explode in the group setting. We will
find more and more such leaders as we experience greater degrees of
repression and inner tension.
The writer Robert Louis Stevenson expressed this dynamic in the
novel The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, published in
1886. The main character, Dr. Jekyll, is a well-respected and wealthy
doctor/scientist with impeccable manners, so much like the paragons
of goodness in our culture. He invents a concoction that transforms
him into Mr. Hyde, the embodiment of his Shadow, who proceeds to
murder and rape and indulge in the wildest of sensual pleasures.
Stevenson’s idea is that the more civilized and moral we outwardly
become, the more potentially dangerous is the Shadow, which we so
fiercely deny. As the character Dr. Jekyll describes it, “My devil had
long been caged, he came out roaring.”
The solution is not more repression and correctness. We can never
alter human nature through enforced niceness. The pitchfork doesn’t
work. Nor is the solution to seek release for our Shadow in the group,
which is volatile and dangerous. Instead the answer is to see our
Shadow in action and become more self-aware. It is hard to project
onto others our own secret impulses or to overidealize some cause,
once we are made aware of the mechanism operating within us.
Through such self-knowledge we can find a way to integrate the dark
side into our consciousness productively and creatively. (For more on
this, see the last section of this chapter.) In doing so we become more
authentic and complete, exploiting to the maximum the energies we
naturally possess.