Enemy, Cripple, Beggar: Shadows in the Hero's Path

MY HERO Erel Shalit has extended to us a gracious invitation to evolve. If digested slowly and carefully his book equips us with the tools to decipher the images our Souls encounter on their quest for meaning and relatedness. Enemy, Cripple and Beggar; Shadows in the Hero's Path (ECB) is a scholarly analysis of the Soul's struggle with its demons in the hopes of deepening self awareness. The foundation of his treatise lies in psychoanalysis, the science of the images that form a collective treasure of lore. He illuminates these images and tracks the patterns at play. The images that hold meaning for us are embedded in our soul. As he beautifully writes: It is the Self that resides within the soul, or that perhaps is the soul, that is given voice whenever attended to. The ego searches for meaning vis-à-vis the hero in its dreams. The hero "ventures into the darkness of the shadow to retrieve the treasure", one's true feelings and unique potential. Relating to our dreams can procure the understanding we yearn for. Shalit makes a convincing case for the role of the shadow in the hero's path. Quite simply, without a shadow there is no hero. The hero is only a hero as long as he is facing his shadows which are an integral part of him. The shadow never dies and the more one represses it, the more imbued with energy and destructive it becomes. By facing and embracing these shadows, the hero diffuses them. Pathology is imminent for the detached hero who stops relating to the shadows and becomes one with his false gods, at war with the enemies of himself. The three aspects of the shadow, Enemy, Cripple and Beggar are the markers of our quest. We project our difficulties on to the other who we define as the Enemy. Our empathy for others is how we face our own wounds, the Cripple in ourselves. Our encounter with the Beggar within, teaches us compassion. Through tales and dramas- Biblical, literary and clinical, Dr. Shalit guides us through the secret and sacred truths of our soul. This is the process of transformation that ECB extracts from myths that carry archetypal significance for mankind. Looking beyond our personal narratives we discover many tales for-told whose significance for us depends on our willingness to address them. Our stories clothe the metaphors of the hero's encounters. The life we breathe into them when we reflect upon them is the bringing together of heaven and earth- heavenly understandings permeating our personal narrative and "moisturizing" our Soul with meaning. "To find meaning we need to be equipped with the sword and with bravery and with a mirror and with reflection, embrace and compassion, with strength and with weakness, with the light of appearance and a guiding lamp." Shalit's enlightened examination is his guiding lamp. Now I must free my ego's heroes to grope amongst the shadows lurking in my innermost thoughts in an effort to identify and relate to them, so I may pierce the darkness with insight in the hope

Written by Erel Shalit, a noted and extensively published Jungian psychoanalyst practicing in Ra'anana, Israel, Enemy, Cripple & Beggar is a treasure for our times. Vital and applicable to both lay people and experts, the book flows seamlessly and spirally from scholarship, to textual interpretation, to case studies, and the analysis of dreams. Shalit draws on an impressive breadth of scholarship and myths/fairy tales, looking at both history (e.g., the Crusades or Masada) and story. The book first discusses the key aspects of the Hero, considering Byron, the work of Robert Graves and Robert Bosnak, the Bible, and Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces, among many other sources. I take as my starting point the condition of mythlessness in the modern world, as expressed by Jung and reinforced by Campbell and how it is limiting our vision and ability to cure an ailing world rife with war and economic/environmental woes. If ever we needed to consider the role of the Hero, it is now. Consider the mistaken mythologizing of the death and wounding, respectively, of Pat Tillman and Jessica Lynch. While both are certainly heroes, the government's and media's manipulation of their circumstances (used to try and justify an unjustifiable war) bring to mind David Mamet's Wag the Dog, the 1997 film adaptation of Larry Beinhart's novel, American Hero. The people love their heroes and their construction for societal consumption by the government and the media has become no less than a High Art. Shalit says, on p. 24: "In society, the hero may be the messenger of hope who lights the torch of democracy. Sometimes it is amazing how, at the right moment in history, the heroism of a nation, spurting forth through layers of oppression, creates dramatic changes and overthrows worn-out regimes." Might this apply to U.S. president-elect Barak Obama? Many people think so, and many more find themselves hoping so. Then again, there are many who see him as the shadow, using the term antichrist, and finding similarities between he and Nicolae Carpathia in the Left Behind series. If ever we needed to consider the role of the Hero, it is now. Consider the current fascination with Superheroes in the age of CGI and comic book cinema. Just last night I watched Christopher Nolan's record-shattering The Dark Knight, which takes as its thesis the complicated interrelationship of the hero and the shadow. Given the death of Heath Ledger, who played the Joker, the notions of the Hero are expanded to the realm of the Artist and his or her relationship with Pain. When Shalit writes, on p. 95, "...life thrives in the shadow; in our detested weaknesses, complex inferiorities and repressed instincts there is more life and inspiration than in the well-adjusted compliance of the persona," I think that his words bring Ledger's death into sharp relief. As an acting teacher who works almost exclusively with teens, many of which see Ledger's "dying for his art" as a form of

It's the most basic component of story telling the Hero and the Villain. "Enemy Cripple & Beggar: Shadows in the Hero's Path" takes a look at this basic concept and why it is so appealing to readers. Going to the basic psychology of the tale and how ancient stories led the way, and how they evolved through the years with mankind, "Enemy Cripple & Beggar" provides an informed and thoughtful perspective concerning literary good and evil alongside society's norms and mores. An original work by Erel Shalit, "Enemy Cripple & Beggar" is a unique blend as a literary and psychology manual, making it highly recommended for both personal reading lists and community library collections.