3rd Type of Crisis: Loss of Confidence in Moral Ideals

Another kind of crisis is a loss of confidence in your moral ideals; this form of enantiodromia is something that one finds often among young people in college. Young person is living with a roommate who comes from another order of society altogether, either the port person who’s living with the wealthy or the wealthy with the poor, or the Christian with the atheist, or the jury with the Buddhist. You find out that here is a perfectly decent person also. It’s not that the other person seduced you into sin; it’s that getting to know that makes you question your own moral principles. And since those moral principles–the persona complex–are holding your ego in place, when they relax all the rest comes out. There’s the threat or the allure of becoming a turtle person: what I call the knock knock of the shadow from underneath. That’s your own dark person talking. You might also get what I call the twinkle twinkle of the anima/animus: come, little boy, it’s interesting around the corner. You’ve never seen girls like this.

Well, says Jung, let it come. Let it go. But don’t do it with such abandon that your ego is entirely shattered.

Joseph Campbell (Pathways to Bliss, 81-2)




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