Unofficial Vital Student ‘Zine
Notes from Vital Psychedelic Training class of ‘23
Revenge of the Shadow
The Shadow’s back! Plus sidekicks Golden Shadow, Collective Shadow, Cultural Shadow, Anti-Shadow…
Just when you thought it was safe to step into the sunshine – the Shadow’s back! With its sidekicks Golden Shadow, Collective Shadow, Cultural Shadow, Anti-Shadow and your Anima alone knows what else…
‘Memorabilia’ by Luna Ikuta showing at Wavelength: A Momentary Spring, Beijing Times Art Museum China till 1 July
Thought integrating ‘the parts of you that you’re most ashamed of and keep hidden’ was the trickiest part of Jungian shadow work?
You may be unsurprised to learn that the cycles are just beginning.
There’s the ‘golden shadow’.
This includes the silver linings that inevitably accompany the regular shadow’s negative traits.
Plus perhaps more importantly the agreeable and positive aspects that we’ve smothered. We might suppress compassionate urges to appear indifferent (hard and cool in other words).
"We take the collective shadow and make it our own”
Sounds reasonably clear-cut.
Yet be wary of discriminating between the golden shadow and the murky, original one. “The ‘positive vibes only’ culture is anti-shadow,” says says Jungian analyst Dr Ido Cohen, lecturing in Vital’s shadow work lecture series, "what might be happening that oppresses the shadow?”
That’ll be ‘the collective shadow’. It’s the one who also nailed Christ to the cross, and willingly elects dictators. "We take the collective shadow and make it our own,” Dr Cohen expands.
“We can absorb the collective shadow, or become numb to it,” adds Dr Portal. Likewise we might celebrate our outsider status; just as psychonaut heads like to do. Should we attempt union? Or consolidate independence?
“What does integration look like?” says Dr Ido Cohen, “Moving away from these systems and creating something new? Or is it taking pieces of the experience and carrying forth?”
British christian ecologist Paul Kingsnorth has a stark view on navigating shadow work. ‘Sacrifice and surrender are at the heart of faiths,’ he points out, ‘Nobody wants this. But maybe it’s what we have to do?’
Serving up more Integration articles here on New Psychonaut:
Heoric Doses of Reality
Peak existence is the new peak experience, says 5-MEO DMT expert Dr Malin Vedøy Uthaug.
Peak existence is the new peak experience, says 5-MEO DMT expert Dr Malin Vedøy Uthaug
By Trulee Hall from ‘Plays on Foreplays’, at Rusha & Co, Los Angeles, February 4 till March 11, 2023
The strictest lesson psychedelics taught me, is that they themselves are not important. It’s lived experience that is.
I don’t mean a Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers existence. (Although I am all for that too, especially as part of some ‘path of excess leading to the palace of wisdom’ thing). I mean stuff like Dr Malin Vedøy Uthaug does.
The 5-MEO DMT research maven took up free diving while stuck in, y’know, Egypt during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I believe our society has emotional constipation. We need to get that shit out”
This helped over come her fear of deep open water – ‘thalassophobia’ – and since she’s set two free diving records in her native Norway.
“I believe our society has emotional constipation. We need to get that shit out,” says the firebrand, who’s swift to remind us that “different diets lead to a different psychedelic experience,” certainly according to plant medicine purists.
This is felt on the material plane: “Putting the body back into the equation, is the way forward,” Dr Uthaug claims.
This could mean bioenergetic therapy to encourage consciousness ‘integration’ on a physical level. Or… actually doing things as opposed to just talking about them.
“Changes need to be actively translated into your life,” says Dr Uthaug… which admittedly is likely to mean unexpected challenges, hard truths, and personal growth generally earned the hard way as per usual.
“In the light of day, insights are about lifestyle”
The trip is only part of the healing. You do the rest with the actions you undertake. That the mushroom or whatever told you to do.
“A more holistic framework is what I’d love to see going forward, here in the space,” says Dr Uthaug, “Take an exaggerated example: when an addict take a psychedelic, they realise, oh, I shouldn't be taking this substance anymore because it fucks me up, right? And so in the light of day, insights are about lifestyle.”
Each ‘Zine features the most mind-blowing bits I scrawled down during each of Vital’s exclusive live lectures by the finest minds in the space. Browse them by issue or go straight to the introductions with lecturer details.
And search by the topics: Traditional and Modern Approaches, Therapy, Space Holding, Medical and Clinical, and Integration. Funnies at the end too.