Spirituality in Clinical Practice 2014, Vol. 1, No. 2, 99 –101
© 2014 American Psychological Association 2326-4500/14/$12.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/scp0000018
COMMENTARY
See No Evil: The Perceptual Processing of the Shadow Aurelie Athan
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Teachers College, Columbia University
Symbol as representing ultimate good and evil has a rich history within depth psychology and analytic traditions. Yet only now, with these findings of Newberg and colleagues (Johnson et al., 2014, pp. 82–98), do we gain new insight at the level of the brain. Many theorists from cultural anthropology to psychiatry have proposed a natural, “symbol-producing” function of the human mind or psyche that may account for mankind’s great works of art, mythologies, and most sacred beliefs. But whether or not this receptivity is in fact embedded, as Andrew Newberg asks, in the brain, is now a question for 21st-century neuroscience to answer. This pilot study on the effect of religious symbols on brain function breaks new ground, testing the perceptual world of its participants based on their religious and spiritual beliefs. Using MRI brain scans of the visual system, differences in the ability to perceive religious symbols were measured alongside levels of openness to existential questions and positive or negative views of God. In essence, do our higher order beliefs about the existence and nature of the universe enlighten or blind us? Do they affect our ability to literally see visual sensory input? This would be remarkable, and if so, would provide potential examples of downward causation, in which higher level mental events mediate lower level physical events. What is most striking about the study’s (Johnson et al., 2014) findings is that negative symbols, particularly religious negative symbols, outperform positive ones in inducing what could be a neurocorollary to “psychic blindness”—a deactiviation of the primary visual
cortex, where the early stages of visual processing take place. This phenomenon might be more accurately described as not activating or engaging the visual cortex as much, with negative symbols therefore attended to in a less vivid manner. Multiple other brain regions involved with the visual system were shown to have a similarly subdued response. In a world replete with sensory stimuli, it seems worthwhile to hone in on the things that do not capture our attention as much as those that do—in this case, negative symbols of a religious nature, which, when compared with others, had the greatest inhibitory impact on the brain. These findings leave much for the scholarly imagination in generating possible interpretations for the differential effect that various symbols may have on the brain. Is it merely how they look aesthetically to the eye? The authors initially wonder, are straight lines more preferable than nonlinear ones? Are simple versus complex designs “better” to look at? Or is there is something at the level of representation that captures us? Paul Tillich (1958) argues, for example, That the devotion to the crucifix, is really directed to the crucifixion on Golgotha and devotion to the latter is in reality intended for the redemptive action of God, which is itself a symbolic expression for an experience of what concerns us ultimately. (p. 3)
It might be illuminating to first consider the nature of the symbols used in this study. From a Jungian point of view, symbols that arise from the psyche, and that form the basis of the participants’ selections, in essence, point to something else. Whether the circle, the crescent, or serpents, whole meaning systems are stored in symbols, especially those held sacred. Sacred symbols dramatize both the positive and negative values of a group (Geertz, 1957, p. 425). When encountering religious symbols, Tillich (1955) encourages us to ask, “Which is the relationship to the ultimate which is symbolized by these symbols?” (p. 193). To look at them is
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Aurelie Athan, 525 West 120th St., Department of Counseling & Clinical Psychology, Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027. E-mail:
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ATHAN
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
essentially to see the religious and cultural snapshot of the test subjects, a Judeo-Christian and capitalist world view woven as a web of symbols before us (e.g., a cross, a devil, a dollar sign). Taken together, these symbols, like those from any other group, Sum up, for those for whom they are resonant, what is known about the way the world is, the quality of the emotional life it supports, and the way one ought to behave while in it. Sacred symbols thus relate an ontology and cosmology. (Geertz, 1957, p. 422)
So why, then, would only a subset of these images, namely, the negative religious symbols, be “obscured” by our visual system? Psychologists and psychoanalysts might interpret such a phenomenon as akin to the defense mechanisms of the psyche—a neurological form of suppression or repression whereby I “don’t want to see,” or “can’t see,” or “selectively inattend to” what is in front of me because it is too disturbing. Although it is a basic Jungian assumption that the contents of the unconscious, the complexes and archetypal images that symbols represent, “can and do disturb consciousness” (Jung & Stein, 1995 p. 5), this difficulty perceiving negative religious symbols might signal a deeper concern— difficulty taking in the possibility of evil in the world, and within us. From a Jungian perspective, that which is categorized (usually by the ego) as evil is actually the shameful or frightening side of life’s coin, ejected out of conscious awareness and condemned to an underground existence—into a walled-off shadow containing all the rejected aspects of our being (Jung, 1960; Segal, 1985). No longer a part of the self, but the antiself, these unworthy qualities are “unseen,” yet readily seen in others—projected onto the outer world (Ventegodt, Andersen, & Merrick, 2003). The axis of evil is out there, not in here; it is you, not me. The subgroup of participants measured to have a maladaptive perspective when it comes to religious beliefs provides another layer to the story. Rather than experience God as a loving presence who sees the essential goodness of people, they instead perceived God in more conflicting or punishing ways. When presented with symbols rated as negative and religious, they were emotionally triggered, as evidenced by increased activation in the amygdala. These folks became more intensely aroused when con-
fronted with representations of the “dark side.” They likely experienced some type of emotional dysregulation, given their underlying ideologies of God as unpleasant. One might speculate that because they perceive the world through such dark-tinted glasses, these negative religious symbols serve as a visceral reminder that God does not allow humanity’s baser impulses and chastises those that sin. These unacceptable parts are threatening at an instinctual level and are removed from awareness, out of view. Religious historian Mircea Eliade stated that God justifies both fear and love, encompassing, reconciling, and transcending these contrary positions. This is the essence of the coincidentia oppositorium, “the paradox of divine reality,” which forms the basis of all divinity (Ashley, 1982, p. 128). For Jung as well, good and evil are derived from God—God’s right hand—and the other, his left. Unlike the predominant teachings of Christianity, the figure of the devil is merely the darker aspect of the divine rather than a separate satanic force (Segal, 1985). Like the Hebrew Yahweh and the Taoist yinyang, God is a totality of light and dark (Hall & Raff, 2006; Segal, 1985). It is this wholeness of God that Jung insists must be understood if mankind is to evolve. Society, however, is not responsible for driving this revolution in consciousness—it is the work of the individual to practically address the question of evil. When first encountering the dark side of the self, it may feel as if one is confronting evil itself (Segal, 1985). The psychological task of psychotherapy and the individuation process for Jung is integrating the shadow: Integration is a term that refers to a psychological act of ownership: that is myself! With respect to integration of the shadow and of the evil that it contains, this means that the evil of which I was formerly unaware of in myself (and probably found in someone else, a projection-carrier) I now can locate within. (Jung & Stein, 1995, p. 21)
So what qualities would be necessary to be able to fully participate in this integration process, whereby negative aspects are readily observed and accepted? According to Newburg’s study, it may be the possessing of a quality of openness to religious and spiritual inquiry, perhaps even the metaphysical questions pertaining to the existence of evil itself. The subgroup of participants with a questing orientation that involved “an open-ended and responsive dialogue
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SEE NO EVIL
with existential questions raised by the contradictions and tragedies of life” (p. 84) did not experience the same inhibition of the visual cortex, nor were they emotionally activated. This held true for both religious and nonreligious negative symbols. These individuals appeared to more readily tolerate paradox, the possibility of the negative, and therefore to allow it to visually register. If the main function of the symbol is “the opening up of levels of reality which otherwise are hidden and cannot be grasped in any other way” (Tillich, 1955, p. 191), rather than be closed off, this group opened to the darker dimension, took the bad with the good, saw it. Perhaps what can be concluded in the overall findings is the biological basis for the metabolism of evil and the shadow side of our nature. For Jung, “to see one’s own shadow clearly and to admit its reality requires considerable moral strength in an individual” (Jung & Stein, 1995, p. 19). It is for this reason that humans have a tendency toward self-deception, to leave things unexamined, and why corrupt leaders and salacious clergymen exist in the world. Though we may all be called to face our shadow, the processing of negative material, especially of a religious nature, may be an act only few have the stomach (or neurological wiring) for. Jung himself had a complicated relationship with the shadow, on the one hand, believing in the enormous benefit of bringing it into awareness, and on the other, believing that the shadow can “never be com-
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pletely eliminated or defeated” (Ventegodt et al., 2003) . . . or seen. References Ashley, K. M. (1982). The guiler beguiled: Christ and Satan as theological tricksters in medieval religious literature. Criticism, 24, 126 –137. Geertz, C. (1957). Ethos, world-view and the analysis of sacred symbols. The Antioch Review, 421– 437. Hall, J. A., & Raff, J. (2006). Thoughts on the nature of evil. Journal of Jungian Theory and Practice, 8, 19 –29. Johnson, K., Rao, H., Wintering, N., Dhillon, N., Hu, S., Zhu, S., . . . Newberg, A. B. (2014). Pilot study of the effect of religious symbols on brain function: Association with measures of religiosity. Spirituality in Clinical Practice, 1, 82–98. Jung, C. G. (1960). Good and evil in analytical psychology. Journal of Analytical Psychology, 5, 91– 100. doi:10.1111/j.1465-5922.1960.00091.x. Jung, C. G., & Stein, M. (1995). Jung on evil. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Segal, R. A. (1985). A Jungian view of evil. Zygon, 20, 83– 89. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9744.1985.tb00581.x Tillich, P. (1955). Religious symbols and our knowledge of God. The Christian Scholar, 38, 189 –197. Tillich, P. (1958). The religious symbol. Daedalus, 87, 3–21. Ventegodt, S., Andersen, N. J., & Merrick, J. (2003). The life mission theory V. Theory of the anti-self (the shadow) or the evil side of man. The Scientific World Journal, 3, 1302–1313. doi:10.1100/tsw .2003.117 Received May 16, 2014 Accepted May 16, 2014 䡲
