Pay Attention To Your Fantasies Cain and Abel do not just re | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson Official Telegram Channel

Pay Attention To Your Fantasies

Cain and Abel do not just represent two archetypal types of being. This is two different potential patterns of destiny, and you do not manifest one purely and the other zero. It is the line between good and evil that runs down the human heart. It is exactly the same idea. Maybe you are more like Cain or maybe you are more like Abel, but there is still a little Cain in you no matter how Abel you are. And maybe more than a little. And probably more than a little.

If you watch your fantasies, which I would very much recommend, you will find that they show you dark things about you that will shock you if you allow yourself to be conscious of what you are thinking. When you are having an argument with someone — especially someone you love — is a good time to just watch the pictures that flash in the back of your mind.

That is part of coming into contact with what Carl Jung called “the shadow,” and the shadow is the manifestation of Cain. That is a perfect way of thinking about it. Jung was not someone you mess around with lightly. He said the human shadow has roots that reach all the way to hell, and Jung meant that. That is no metaphor for him. He might not have meant it in the same way that a Fundamentalist Christian from the Southern U.S. might mean it, but I would say that Jung meant it in a way that is far more terrifying — and also far more true.