“The psychology of individuation has nothing to do with politics at all because it deals with the ultimate values, but yes, it has shattering political implications. We cannot behave as if this journey into the collective unconscious hasn’t happened, because it has happened. We can’t plead ignorance any more. It has happened and because it’s happened, because we are facing an objective universe within as great as the universe without, we can never be the same again. We cannot ignore it and it has enormous political consequences for us. And the kind of society, the kind of politics that will save us will have to be aware, more important than any other quality in our politicians. We must demand psychological illumination, psychological awareness, because otherwise we get people sparring with their own shadows. Otherwise, you’ll get nations, as we had in 1939, by the Germans projecting their shadows onto the Jews, and then when they’d eliminated the Jews, onto the Poles and God knows whatnot. Jung often said to me, the human being who starts by withdrawing his own shadow from his neighbor is doing work of immense immediate social and political importance.”
–Sir Laurens van der Post (December 13, 1906 – December 16, 1996) was a 20th-century Afrikaner author, farmer, war hero, political adviser to British heads of government, close friend of Prince Charles, godfather of Prince William, … Wikipedia
