Unconscious of your story, you are in its grasp; but with consciousness, an alchemical process begins: The solidity of the complex dissolves and you can open up to the arrival of a new archetype, the birth of a new cycle of life. In the shadow, then, lies our myth and our fate.

I remember when the Cold War ended, how quickly the United States was swept by a nationalistic fervor and turned against Saddam Hussein. As soon as we lost our age-old enemy, the Soviet Union, we instantly created a new one.

Once you uncover the history of this pattern and trace its roots, you will see that your reaction in the present moment is really a reaction from the past, a shadow character's attempt to protect you from reexperiencing an old emotional wound, which instead sabotages you in the present.

To sin is to be off the mark, that is, to inhibit development, contracting backward into regression rather than expanding forward into growth.

There are certainly statistics which show that most people who become sociopaths, who become homicidal, who become child- abusers, have had a history of incredible suffering. This is what we call the transmission of family sin, in which these unconscious patterns get carried on for generations in a legacy of pain. When they are not brought to awareness and worked through, each generation just automatically enacts them.

Shadow-making happens in families and makes us who we are. It leads to shadow-work, which makes us who we can become.

Unconscious of your story, you are in its grasp; but with consciousness, an alchemical process begins: The solidity of the complex dissolves and you can open up to the arrival of a new archetype, the birth of a new cycle of life. In the shadow, then, lies our myth and our fate.