June 1990
What The Shadow Knows
An Interview With John Sanford
The Jungian definition of the shadow was put well by Edward C. Whitmont, a New York analyst, who said that the shadow is “everything that has been rejected during the development of the personality because it did not fit into the ego ideal.” If you were raised a Christian with the ego ideal of being loving, morally upright, kind, and generous, then you’d have to repress any qualities you found in yourself that were antithetical to the ideal: anger, selfishness, crazy sexual fantasies, and so on. All these qualities that you split off would become the secondary personality called the shadow. And if that secondary personality became sufficiently isolated, you would become what’s known as a multiple personality.
Why Schools Don’t Educate
Schools were designed by Horace Mann and Barnas Sears and W.R. Harper of the University of Chicago and Edward Thorndike of Columbia Teachers College and others to be instruments for the scientific management of a mass population. Schools are intended to produce, through the application of formulas, formulaic human beings whose behavior can be predicted and controlled.
The Renewal
His renewal began with the appearance of that most despised of all the midnight messengers, THE COSELL, and the anguished realization of that most dreadful day’s certain coming.
Vigil
At first John had gone with one of the search parties, walking across the open fields dense with dried stalks. The men marched in a great straggled line, an arm’s length separating them, setting each foot deliberately. It was still dark and it was usual to delay the search until first light, but the autumn had turned winter suddenly. They were afraid: she was such a frail child.
Three Audreys
Lil’ Audrey had heard that joke weeks before at school, but she didn’t think people, even her Daddy, should be telling jokes about the dead. Besides, she knew Octavia’s grandson, Skeeter, was one of Dr. King’s followers.
Dear Michael
Kevin Murray, retired, one-time police chief of a small midwestern city, turned on his electric typewriter and began his third letter of the day. “Dear Abbie Hoffman, It says in the newspapers you killed yourself because you weren’t getting enough attention. Makes sense. More sense than most of what you said. . . .”
