The Shade of the Robe
In anticipation of the Shadow Series, starting Sunday. Join us.
To confront a person with his shadow is to show him his own light. Once one has experienced a few times what it is like to stand judgingly between the opposites, one begins to understand what is meant by the self. Anyone who perceives his shadow and his light simultaneously sees himself from two sides and thus gets in the middle.
—Carl Jung
We will enter the Shadow this coming Sunday, so I wanted to offer a final invitation to curious travelers. (Note: I have one donated pass. First come, first served. Claim it now.)
The Grey Robes concept originated from Scott Alexander's 2014 coinage, the "Grey Tribe." The label represents a socio-cultural group that defies conventional ideological binaries, rejecting partisan excesses in favor of timeless truths and discovery in dialectics.
Balaji Srinivasan extends this idea to those building new societies amid the old ones. He emphasizes a central moral premise—rooted in self-sovereignty and anti-authoritarianism—that justifies righteous counterpower.
For us, that is the Law of Consent, about which I’ll offer more later. Around this moral core, we must build an empire of the mind.
Enriched by Tolkien’s symbol of the senex, Gandalf the Grey, the symbolism captures a mediator and warrior-wizard, balancing wisdom and action. But we can’t forget the influence of Jung, who reminded us we must “stand judgingly between the opposites.”
Despite weaving in Nietzsche’s critique of rigid morality and slow, state-induced suicide, the Grey Robes complement religious faith. We don’t compete with it. We strive to understand a life well-lived, including Grey Virtues, which we practice amid uncertainty. We explore the dynamics of becoming using a mix of open dialectics and core dogma.
But that requires stepping into the Shadow, which puts one squarely “in the middle,” between darkness and light. Remember also that darkness and light are not good and evil per se, but instead are, as Jung teaches, archetypal expressions of the psyche’s dual nature:
Unconscious and conscious,
Chaos and order,
Hidden and revealed.
Jung teaches us that this murky realm harbors not just repressed flaws and fears but also untapped creativity and vitality. Yetzer Harah and Yetzer Hatov. All must be integrated.
To stand in the middle is to embrace the tension of opposites, a crucible of individuation, where one confronts his or her unacknowledged selves, wrestles with their ambiguities, and emerges more complete.
