Shadow Work and Occult Spiritual Warfare

Bernhard Guenther – Carl Jung famously said: “Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is.”

But the implications of this go far beyond ordinary psychology.

The more unconscious we are of our shadow, the more likely we are to project it onto others, become possessed by our own emotional reactions, and mistake external evil for the sole source of evil.

In the context of spiritual warfare, this unconsciousness can also become an entry point for hostile forces that amplify and feed off our repressed emotions, wounds, and projections.

This article explores the relationship between shadow work, psychic attack, occult warfare, and the deeper problem of externalizing evil, which is characteristic of an age dominated by head-centered ego consciousness and materialism, where humanity lives under the illusion of separation and disconnection from the spiritual realities underlying existence.

I will look at how unconscious projections can function like psychic attacks, how the occult law of rebound works, why hatred and revenge can make us become what we fight against, and why a purely external attempt to “eradicate evil” can never address the deeper forces behind it or truly overcome the deeper roots of evil.

I will also explore why shadow work is not pacifism, why not everything we encounter is merely our personal projection, and why genuine discernment requires learning to differentiate between our personal shadow, wounded ego complexes, archetypal forces, and hostile occult influences.

Ultimately, the real work requires both inner and outer work. The battlefield is not only outside of us. It is also within us. And learning to consciously navigate that inner battlefield is one of the foundations of genuine spiritual and psychic protection.

The Battlefield Is Within

One of the greatest challenges on the spiritual path or the path of the truth seeker is not only learning how to recognize external attacks, but learning how not to become the very thing we are fighting against.

It also means understanding how we can unknowingly attack ourselves when the thought-forms and projections we send out return to us, almost like self-created entities that come back to haunt us.

This is why shadow work and spiritual warfare cannot be separated.

Whenever we encounter another person’s shadow, their projections, or even an apparent psychic attack, we potentially have a choice: do we react unconsciously and mechanically, or do we respond with awareness and inner sovereignty?

Most people are so unconscious and so controlled by their shadow and identified with subpersonality parts that they do not even realize they have a choice.

So the first and most important foundation is to establish the witness within and create enough inner space between the trigger and the reaction so that we are not immediately identified with whatever arises.

That is already easier said than done, because it requires us to stay with the discomfort within without immediately projecting it outward, acting it out, or trying to get rid of it.

When you receive negative shadow projections from others, whether psychically through their thoughts or directly through their words, it is important not to become reactive. Do not respond with a counterattack, negative projections, counter-gossip, or contempt toward the person.

By reacting on the same level, you enter their game and align yourself with the same frequency. In a sense, you give permission for the attack to affect you because you have accepted the invitation to participate in it.

The predator, or wetiko, works through the mind of the other person by activating their suppressed shadow. But it can also infect your mind if you accept their projections and respond from your own unresolved shadow.

This becomes an occult trap of agreement.

Once you respond with your own negative projections, whether psychically through your thoughts or outwardly through your words and actions, you begin fighting fire with fire. You then become responsible for the karmic consequences of your own thoughts and projections as well.

Most psychic attacks are unconscious.

We all can become channels for psychic attacks without realizing it, especially when we are emotionally triggered. These attacks occur whenever someone projects negatively charged mental or emotional energy toward another person, either verbally or through thought.

These shadow projections function like energetic arrows directed toward the other person, regardless of physical distance.

As Rudolf Steiner said:

“A feeling of hatred directed at another is very real, and for one who can see in the spiritual world, it is much more powerful than hitting him with a stick.”

Hostile forces and entities can piggyback on these projections. They magnify them while feeding off the emotional energy being generated. Their entry point is the repressed shadow, unconscious traumas, or childhood wounds within both people.

They activate the wound, ignite the trigger, and release the emotional energy they are after, which some people refer to as loosh.

This can take the form of passive-aggressiveness or overt aggression, projected anger and irritation, hatred, contempt, grandiosity, resentment, jealousy, and envy. It can also express itself through complaining, blaming, slander, gossip behind people’s backs, smear campaigns, and personal attacks on social media.

You can psychically attack others in this way, or you can become the recipient of the negative thought projections of others.

But whenever you engage in emotionally charged negative projections toward another person, or indulge in fantasies arising from your lower nature, you also create vulnerabilities within your own energy field.

You attract hostile forces that feed off this emotional energy and drain your life force.

Through the porosity of the mind, these forces can then intensify the projections, giving you more reasons, justifications, and thought injections to continue projecting while making yourself feel righteous about it.

You may begin to feel increasingly convinced that your hatred, resentment, contempt, or desire for revenge is justified. But the more you indulge these thoughts and accept them as your own, the more you become an instrument for the hidden forces working through you.

The Occult Law of Rebound

In this context, it is important to understand the occult law of rebound, sometimes called the law of return. This law states that any negative thought projected outward toward a specific person, especially when it is emotionally charged, will eventually return to the sender if the targeted person does not fully absorb it.

In other words, what you believe is coming from another person or an external entity may sometimes be your own thought-forms returning to you. The great occultist Dion Fortune warned that not every psychic disturbance originates externally from another person or a demonic entity. She wrote:

“It is not every case of psychic disturbance, however, which originates externally. It is a well-known cosmic law that everything moves in circles, and whatever forces we send out, and whatever thought-forms we extrude from our auras, unless absorbed by the object to which they are directed, will return to us in due course.

One of the most effective, and also one of the most widely practiced methods of occult defense is to refuse to react to an attack, neither accepting nor neutralizing the forces projected against one and thus turning them back on their sender.

We must never overlook the fact that a so-called occult attack may be evil thought-forms returning home to roost.” – Dion Fortune

The Mother, Mirra Alfassa, Sri Aurobindo’s spiritual collaborator, explained the same occult law:

“In occultism, there is the ‘rebound.’ You send out a bad thought, it returns to you as an attack. That is exactly one of the reasons why you must have complete control over your feelings, sensations, thoughts.

If you become angry with someone or think badly of him, or wish him ill, in your very dream you may see this person coming with extreme violence to attack you. Then, if you do not know these things, you say, ‘Why, I was right in having bad thoughts against him!’

But in fact, it is your own thought that comes back to you. If you make a mental formation that something unpleasant should happen to a certain person, and this person is in a very high state of consciousness, the formation will come up against his atmosphere and instead of entering will rebound upon the one who has made it.” – The Mother, Mirra Alfassa

In other words, you can become your own attacker when you continually radiate negative projections while living under the paranoid illusion that someone else or an entity is psychically attacking you.

From a higher perspective, the rebound effect is karmic feedback for self-correction. It teaches self-responsibility and reveals the importance of shadow work, particularly the need to retrieve our projections. The saying ‘what goes around comes around’ points to the law of rebound.

But even when the targeted person absorbs the projection and it affects them negatively, the person who sent it has still created a karmic burden that will eventually return in some form, whether in this lifetime or another.

As Dion Fortune explained, one of the most effective forms of occult defense is to refuse to react to an attack or projection, neither accepting nor engaging with the forces directed against you, and thereby allowing them to return to their sender.

In other words, people who attack you, gossip behind your back, slander you, or project hatred and anger toward you ultimately become their own worst punishment.

There is no need to attack them in return, react defensively, or engage with them at all. They will eventually have to face and take responsibility for the shadow-triggered negativity they have projected.

And so will you. So will all of us. No one can escape the law of rebound.

Even dark occultists and sorcerers engaging in black magic, spewing curses, or directing psychic attacks will eventually have to face the karmic consequences of their actions and thought formations. They are simply so identified with the ego, Luciferic grandiosity, the lower nature, and the left-hand path that they live under the illusion that they can override Divine Law.

Understanding this law is particularly helpful in the context of social media, where reactive exchanges, emotional projections, and shadow projections are very common.

One of the most effective forms of psychic self-protection when you are personally attacked is non-engagement: do not feed the dynamic. Don’t feed their projection, don’t become defensive, and don’t feed the entity that is potentially working through them and wants that loosh.

Ignore, delete, or block when necessary rather than engage. You don’t owe any strangers on social media your time, energy, or attention.

That may be particularly hard for people with attachment wounds who are suffering from the people-pleaser program and are unable to set healthy boundaries. It is also often easier said than done, especially when your own shadow or childhood wound gets triggered, and you begin taking the attack personally.

When you take the bait and engage in this dance of shadow projection, you also open yourself to further occult attacks.

Hostile forces are attracted to the emotionally charged projections created by unresolved wounds hidden in the shadow. They are drawn to the “delicious meal” contained within this unresolved emotional ammunition. They then influence the mind to intensify the projection, provoking more anger, more resentment, more justification, and more loosh.

This is one of the foundations of the hyperdimensional Matrix divide-and-conquer agenda.

Human beings are continually pitted against one another through collective shadow projection. It becomes a massive trigger and loosh fest, with billions of people acting and reacting unconsciously while occult hostile forces pull their strings and feed on the emotional energy being generated.

This is also one of the reasons humanity remains so far away from any significant shift in consciousness, let alone a real collective spiritual awakening. We continually create more karmic debt through our unresolved wounds, mechanical triggers, and unconscious shadow projections.

We project onto one another, react to one another’s projections, and then justify our reactions. Round and round we go, while the hidden forces of the Matrix feed off the conflict and amplify the triggers.

They pit people against each other, particularly during times of rising polarization.

The Matrix and the Externalization of Evil

Most people remain caught within the tunnel vision of the three-dimensional manifestations of the Matrix. They focus exclusively on the Deep State, the globalists, central banks, the Illuminati, Zionists, secret societies, political parties, or whatever institution or group they believe is controlling the world.

While these groups and institutions play their part, focusing only on the human level misses the occult and hyperdimensional aspect of the Matrix control system, mistaking symptoms for causes.

Moreover, most people only project evil externally without ever sincerely confronting the darkness within themselves.

Carl Jung warned about the danger of remaining unconscious of our own capacity for evil:

“None of us stands outside humanity’s black collective shadow. Whether the crime occurred many generations back or happens today, it remains the symptom of a disposition that is always and everywhere present—and one would therefore do well to possess some “imagination for evil,” for only the fool can permanently disregard the conditions of his own nature.

In fact, this negligence is the best means of making him an instrument of evil. Harmlessness and naïveté are as little helpful as it would be for a cholera patient and those in his vicinity to remain unconscious of the contagiousness of the disease.

On the contrary, they lead to projection of the unrecognized evil into the “other.”

This strengthens the opponent’s position in the most effective way, because the projection carries the fear which we involuntarily and secretly feel for our own evil over to the other side and considerably increases the formidableness of his threat.

What is even worse, our lack of this insight deprives us of the capacity to deal with evil.” – Carl G. Jung

For example, many people in the “truther community” cheered when it was announced that Jacob Rothschild had died, just as they cheered when Henry Kissinger or other people they considered evil died.

They reacted as though these individuals simply went to hell, the world became a better place, and that was the end of the story. It reflects the illusory belief, rooted in a materialistic worldview, that evil can be eliminated merely by getting rid of certain people.

Many of the powerful sociopaths and psychopaths in positions of power are nothing more than empty vessels and puppets of powerful asuric occult hostile beings.

Many murders and other violent crimes committed by psychopathic individuals, whether individual killers, rapists, or politicians in positions of high power giving orders to kill or engaging in sexual/satanic ritualistic abuse, can be attributed to these occult malevolent entities.

They possess, or work through, their human puppets in order to feed on the “loosh” of suffering. It’s way beyond the desire for money and power on a human level. It is a very ‘delicious’ frequency meal for these beings, for humanity is not at the top of the food chain, frequency- and consciousness-wise.

Remember what Hillary Clinton said about Gaddafi: “We came, we saw, he died!” followed by a big laugh. Frequency-wise, it is no different from laughing or feeling joyful about the death of someone you perceive as an “evil” person.

But the energy of feeling joy over another person’s death feeds the occult forces manipulating humanity from unseen realms.

By taking pleasure in the death and suffering of an ““evil” person, you lower yourself to their level. The same applies to projecting extreme hatred and anger toward people such as Anthony Fauci, Bill Gates, elite pedophiles, or anyone else believed to be responsible for crimes against humanity.

This does not mean that we should take a love-and-light cop-out, deny evil, excuse criminal behavior, avoid discernment, or refuse to hold people accountable.

It means that hatred, contempt, and revenge do not free us from evil.

They bind us more deeply to it.

The death penalty will not change anything either. It will only give satisfaction to the demonic being, and to the human ego living under the illusion that “justice is done,” while the being itself simply looks for another suitable human vessel to use.

Hence, as Sri Aurobindo noted:

“…From this point of view, you will see that capital punishment is absurd. The man who murdered was under the possession of the impulse of some [occult] being. When the man is executed, the being takes possession of another. Some vital [astral] beings want to have their play here….”

Humans are too embedded in the tunnel vision of the dogma of material reality and corrupted religious dogma, with the idea of “heaven” and “hell” and an external God who “punishes” or “rewards,” which is a Matrix program in itself.

Hence, they mistake symptoms for causes and fail to recognize the spiritual reality of countless beings acting on and through them.

You may ask, what is the “solution” then?

First of all, be careful of black-and-white thinking. It is not about doing nothing, turning a blind eye to evil, falling into “blind compassion,” or retreating into some New Age love-and-light cop-out.

Ultimately, it is about a complete shift in consciousness through inner and outer work, rather than trying to “fix the world” or “escape the matrix” only on a superficial 3D level or attempting to eradicate evil externally, which is futile anyway.

We still live under the illusion that the external world is separate from our inner reality.

It is also about understanding spiritual science, the occult, and spiritual realities beyond the limitations of the five senses, and placing all of this within the broader context of the evolution of consciousness.

This requires moving beyond the age of materialism that denies spiritual reality altogether.

At the same time, this does NOT mean blaming everything on entities or avoiding personal responsibility. As many esoteric traditions from East and West pointed out, these occult forces and enities also have a teaching function within the larger process of the evolution of consciousness, although that is a major topic in itself.

Ultimately, a true “awakening” is not merely intellectual or informational awareness of these topics, the Matrix, hidden forces, or conspiracy. It is a complete inner shift in the human being at the level of consciousness through the process of soul embodiment, which also implies conscious action in the world.

It is not about retreating from life or trying to escape it. Nor does this transformation happen by itself.

Conscious effort is necessary.

Becoming What You Fight Against

Hatred feeds the very forces operating through these individuals. Whatever occult force is operating behind someone you consider evil wants you to project hatred and disgust onto its human puppet.

That emotional frequency sustains it and gives it something to feed on.

It is similar to the Emperor in Star Wars attempting to provoke Luke Skywalker into hatred. He wanted Luke to give in to his anger, attack him, and also kill Darth Vader. The Emperor understood that by surrendering to hatred and giving in to blind anger, Luke would begin becoming what he was fighting against. He would join the Dark Side.

This is another form of the occult trap of agreement.

The hostile force invites you to oppose it using its own lower level of consciousness, its own methods, and its own emotional frequency. Once you accept that invitation, it gains an entry point into you.

You give in to the dark side, and you become what you fight against as you are absorbed and invaded by wetiko and the dark forces from within.

The history books are full of so-called good people, revolutionaries, and truth seekers who eventually became that which they fought against or were consumed by their own shadow because they never engaged in genuine inner work.

You can observe this unconscious game of triggering and projection throughout your personal life. You can see it among friends and family, between former partners, on Facebook, X, and other social media platforms, and throughout the world at large.

Observe yourself honestly.

Do you carry resentment toward anyone in your life?

Does your mind continually justify it?

Who triggers you?

Who annoys and irritates you?

Who lives rent-free in your head?

Toward whom do you feel contempt, resentment, jealousy, or anger?

It may be someone you know personally, a former partner, a family member, a social media friend, a public figure, or someone you have never met in real life. Examine your emotions, thoughts, and projections carefully, because they can become entry points for occult forces to pull your strings.

Shadow Work, Inner Differentiation, and Occult Protection

One of the most powerful things you can do for yourself and for the world is to engage sincerely in shadow work, what Carl Jung called “holding the tension of opposites” within yourself, and retrieving your projections.

This is an extremely challenging practice that requires the attitude of a spiritual warrior. It is far easier, more tempting, and often feels much better to project externally rather than face what is arising within ourselves.

But you also need to understand the basics of shadow work, what it actually is, and what it truly entails. As the term “shadow work” has become increasingly popular, it has also become distorted, diluted, and oversimplified.

It is certainly not pacifism, nor is it about becoming passive in the face of evil.

Nor does it mean that everything you see in the world is merely your “projection” or personal shadow.

There are archetypal forces and forms of archetypal evil that you had better not try to integrate, and Carl Jung was very aware of this as well.

As Jungian scholar and analyst Robert Moore pointed out:

“All the different religious traditions have been convinced about this reality [of spiritual warfare]. We moderns are the only people who have not accepted it, and we have the bomb and pollution instead. Jung believed that when we stop talking about the demons we become more vulnerable to their destructive force.

So I want to suggest that there is more to this archetype of spiritual warfare than simply integrating your personal shadow, or merely learning how to love those denied parts of your personality.

It involves learning how to tell the difference between the personal shadow that comes from your individual experience, and the archetypal forces which have access to your psyche from within, that you can never integrate, and had better not try to integrate. Jung discusses this in volume eight of the Collected Works in his distinction between personal complexes and what he calls ‘spirit complexes.’” – Robert Moore, Facing the Dragon

This ties directly into spiritual warfare and the ability to differentiate within yourself what is what.

That inner differentiation is the holy grail and essence of sincere inner work.

The late Jungian analyst Robert A. Johnson, who was trained by Carl Jung’s wife, Emma Jung, and also studied at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry, India, considered “differentiation” a sacred word that should not be taken lightly.

For him, it pointed to something much deeper than mere intellectual discernment. It is one of the most essential foundations of genuine inner work and of what it truly means to “Know Thyself.”

One of the most important principles in shadow work and spiritual warfare is that genuine inner differentiation cannot be reduced to an intellectual checklist.

There is no simple ten-point list that allows the mind to reliably determine, “This is my shadow, this is an archetypal force, and this is a hostile entity.” Conceptual frameworks can help us, but they cannot produce genuine discernment by themselves.

Inner differentiation is a capacity that develops through prolonged psycho-spiritual work.

It requires radical self-honesty, self-observation, shadow work, inner-child work, somatic awareness, psychological maturity, meditation, aspiration, sincerity, and repeated confrontation with our own unconscious material.

Over time, we become increasingly familiar with the texture and signature of our own psyche. We begin to recognize the difference between an abandonment wound, a shame complex, a narcissistic part, a trauma response, a projection or an entity tagging into one of these entry points.

Ultimately, we begin to discern what is the true Self and what are the many fractured, wounded subpersonalities, or ego complexes, that we identify with and mistake for the real “I.”

Part of shadow work is a direct confrontation with evil, especially with the seed and potential for evil within yourself.

“In general, looking at one’s own shadow is purely disagreeable, it is no fun, and the results also are not very amusing, but it has one great advantage: the more one knows about one’s own wickedness, the more one is able to protect oneself against that of other people.

The evil within oneself recognizes evil within the other. If I am naive about my own evil intentions, then I shall fall victim to those of others…

The idealistic fool who gets cheated by everybody and always has bad tricks played on him cannot be helped by pity, but only by being led to his own shadow.” – Marie-Louise von Franz

It is not an easy process. If you engage in shadow work sincerely and correctly, you will inevitably encounter parts of yourself that you do not like, do not want to see, or do not want to acknowledge, and would therefore rather project externally.

The wounded ego will resist this process and try to attribute your own shadow to the other person instead.

That is precisely why genuine shadow work requires courage, humility, discernment, and the attitude of a spiritual warrior.

It is also possible to merely intellectualize the process without somatically embodying it in an integral way.

Shadow work is not about indulging in the shadow and acting it out, nor is it about repressing or suppressing negative emotions.

It has nothing to do with inaction or simply letting external evil run rampant.

It is also not about forcing yourself to feel or think positive thoughts and emotions. This only pushes the shadow further underground and gives it more unconscious power. That is the dark side, or limitation, of stoicism and forced thought control: what appears to be self-mastery can easily become repression.

Instead, shadow work is about fully feeling, integrating, and transmuting these unconscious patterns through an internal alchemical process.

This process allows you to reclaim the energy trapped within the shadow and transform it, which can help you genuinely raise your frequency and level of consciousness according to the law of ascent and descent.

This law states that you can only rise into and truly embody higher levels of consciousness to the degree that you are willing and able to descend into the depths of your own being and shadow, through cycles within cycles, again and again, until enough of the shadow has been integrated for you to become firmly established at a higher level of consciousness.

But many people can overestimate themselves.

There is always the Luciferic temptation for the ego to become spiritualized while the shadow is pushed even further underground. In that case, what appears to be spiritual development can actually become another form of inflation and delusion.

It can establish what some esoteric traditions call a “false foundation,” which can be even harder to break through than a hardened ego structure.

We see this a lot these days, where narcissism has become normalized, especially spiritual narcissism. Robert Moore also explored this dynamic in depth in Facing the Dragon: Confronting Personal and Spiritual Grandiosity. We also dedicated a podcast episode to this topic, The Shadow of Enlightenment: Confronting Spiritual Narcissism.

Engaging sincerely in shadow work will also free immense amounts of creative energy and life force that you didn’t realize you had.

Shadow work is also not something you just do in a weekend workshop, and then you are done. There are no shortcuts for it, and no one can do it for you. It is a 24/7 process integrated into your daily life, including dream work.

Own your projections and triggers. Take responsibility for what you feel. Use these reactions as opportunities to inquire within yourself and heal what has been activated.

Use them as fuel to ignite the alchemical fire of transmutation within. This does not mean blaming yourself, tolerating abuse, or refusing to establish boundaries.

Nor does it mean pretending that everything another person does is merely your own projection. It’s about refusing to fall into blame, victim consciousness and mechanical reactions.

It means responding consciously rather than allowing the unresolved shadow to respond for you and potentially giving occult adverse forces a doorway into your being.

In this sense, shadow work is not separate from occult warfare.

It is one of the most important forms of occult and psychic protection, because the more conscious you become of your own shadow and integrate it, the fewer entry points hostile forces have through which to manipulate you.

And remember, everyone has a shadow.

The less aware you are of it, the more it controls you unconsciously, and the more power occult forces and entities can have over you.

Claiming not to have a shadow is essentially the same as claiming to be fully enlightened.

Godspeed, Bernhard

SF Source Time of Transition Aug 2026