Imagine if you can, Donald Trump has arrived as a gift, to illuminate for us the American "shadow" at this pivotal moment in history. The Swiss Psychiatrist C.G. Jung refers to "the shadow" as the dark side of one's self. The shadow, Jung wrote in 1963, "is that hidden, repressed, for the most part inferior and guilt-laden" aspect of our personality hiding out in the unconscious. Failure to recognize our shadow leaves us exposed to the destructive possession by our disowned shadow.

Are we prepared to see the message of the shadow, illuminating our ongoing collective cultural flaws-more prevalent and tolerated than we would like to admit-from narcissism and misogyny to racism and bigotry? Are we prepared to face the fact that our extractive neoliberal economic ideology has utterly failed us, including trade policies that Trump has shined a light on? Will we now address the lost dignity and fear among a majority of hard-working Americans while wealth soars among a small percentage of Americans to grotesque levels? Do we finally acknowledge the corruption of the special-interest-owned polity controlled by the donor and ruling classes who operate under different rules from the rest of us? The shadow points to lost trust in our institutions for good reason, from government to Wall Street to big business to mainstream media. Do we now see that wealth and winning at all cost is not success, that we lack urgency in dealing with the crisis in American education, or in our mental health crisis (yes, Trump appears mentally unstable)? Finally, and perhaps most dangerous in the long run, the shadow points to our lack of moral responsibility to deal with climate change with an urgency that is far beyond anything Obama has proposed.

Trump is of course a dangerous conman...