<p><strong><em>The Shadow of a Figure of Light: the Archetype of the Alcoholic and the Journey to Enlightenment</em> delves into the nature of modern psychospiritual transformation by examining the human thirst for wholeness through the lens of alcoholism and addiction. Establishing an unknown historical thread that ties renowned psychiatrist C.G. Jung and Alcoholics Anonymous co-founder Bill Wilson, Cody Peterson shows how their methodologies each stemmed from an ancient shamanistic source constellated through what he has coined <em>the archetype of the Alcoholic</em>. Painting the Twelve Steps as a modern myth, the author presents <em>the Alcoholic</em> as a paradoxical image leading us towards enlightenment amid a deepening, culture-wide spiritual crisis.</strong></p><p><strong>Table of Contents</strong></p><p>Acknowledgments</p><p>Foreword</p><p>Introduction</p><p>Personal Roots</p><p>Myths of Meaning</p><p>Part One: The Mythological Mycelia of the Twelve Steps</p><p>Psychological Roots</p><p>William James</p><p>Harvard, 1875</p><p>The Varieties of Religious Experience, 1902</p><p>Clark University, 1909</p><p>The Spiritual Ancestors</p><p>Symbols of Transformation, 1912</p><p>Mythological Mycelia</p><p>Jung and Jaime, 1923</p><p>Mother Earth, Father Sun</p><p>Jung Goes to Taos, 1925</p><p>Jung Goes to Africa, 1925-26</p><p>Myths of Expanding Consciousness</p><p>Jung and Rowland, May 1926</p><p>Rowland and the Oxford Group, 1932</p><p>Bill Wilson Gets Sober, 1934</p><p>The Twelve Steps, 1939</p><p>Part Two: A Psychological Approach to the Twelve Step Myth</p><p>Living Myths and Dying Gods</p><p>The Anonymous Alcoholic</p><p>God Is Dead</p><p>The New God-Image</p><p>Jung's Psychological Approach</p><p>Wilson's (Psychological) Approach</p><p>An Immaculate Conception</p><p>The Great Reality</p><p>The Psychological Function of the God-image</p><p>The Real Problem with Western Metaphysics</p><p>The Objective Psyche</p><p>The Breath of Life</p><p>Meister Eckhart</p><p>An Inadequate Conception</p><p>An Eastern Approach</p><p>The Numinosum</p><p>Shaped Energy</p><p>"The Primitive"</p><p>Spiritual Dynamics</p><p>The Coniunctio Oppositorum</p><p>The Laws of Spiritual Dynamics</p><p>Wilson Discovers a Middle Way</p><p>Part Three: The Thirst for Wholeness</p><p>The Archetype of The Alcoholic</p><p>An Archetype Emerges</p><p>Alcoholism and the West's Spiritual Crisis</p><p>The Alcoholic and the Trickster</p><p>Spiritus Contra Spiritum</p><p>The Wounded Healer</p><p>The Music of Alcoholics</p><p>The Devil</p><p>The Power of Evil in Twelve Step Mythology</p><p>An Insoluble Dilemma</p><p>Self-annihilation</p><p>The Christ-image</p><p>An Incomplete God-image</p><p>Enantiodromia</p><p>The Boy Whistling in the Dark</p><p>Part Four: The Ego and the Self</p><p>The Self</p><p>The Inflated Ego</p><p>Expanding Spiritual Consciousness</p><p>The Fall and the At-one-ment</p><p>The Fall</p><p>The Mythos of the Anonymous Alcoholic</p><p>The At-one-ment</p><p>The Mystery of Compulsion</p><p>The Myth of Compulsion</p><p>Vocation, The Creative Influence</p><p>Doorways to the Self</p><p>A Portal into the Universal Mind</p><p>Emulating the Self</p><p>Conclusion</p><p>The Shadow of a Figure of Light</p><p>Projections of the Self</p><p>Making the Darkness Conscious</p><p>A Play of Light and Dark</p><p>Bibliography</p><p>Index</p>