ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the how, what, and, why of Jung's failure to recognize and apply crucial aspects of his own theory to himself as he encountered what was other in himself, and in actual other people and other traditions in Africa. These failures resulted in limiting and racially biased statements about black-skinned people. An argument is made that those failures, as well as being culturally determined, are, in part, mythic and archetypal, and as such, may eventually induce mortification and mourning that if consciously held will result in a reconstitution of a larger personality. The tension between regressive restoration of persona and corrective trickster dynamics is central to this argument. Jung was fooled in Africa, and, did not fully re-collect the projections that formed in relation to that culture. It is left to the present and next generations to do so. The central question posed in this chapter is, how will Jungian communities act in relation to our own dirt? There is a pressing need to ritualize our own disruption and renewal, to create containers in which the dirt that trickster throws in our faces can serve as compost for the food that will feed future generations.
