Instituto Anemos

When listening to Masks by Vangelis, I had the feeling that every human soul is a unique mask of God.

Not a mask in the sense of falsehood, but in the Greek sense of persona – that which reveals, intensifies, and makes it possible to express what is mysterious and impossible to be seen directly.

But this view brings a difficult question: if every soul is a face of God, what do we do with evil?

The most common answer is to cast it far away from us.

Evil is in the other.
Evil is in a specific group.
Evil is in people who think differently.
Our side is right, pure, enlightened.
Evil is always on the other side.

Thus the fantasy of the savior is born.

For some, it will be Jesus coming down to settle everything with divine intervention.
For others, it will be a strong political leader who, through laws, police, and control, will impose order on chaos.
For others still, it will be a great cosmic or technological event that will purify the world of everything they consider “low,” “primitive,” or “undesirable.”

But this waiting, although it offers consolation, also keeps us infantile. It prevents us from recognizing a more uncomfortable truth: evil is not only “out there.”

When we believe evil is only outside, we deny the existence of the shadow within us.

The unintegrated shadow does not disappear.
It finds other ways to manifest.

It may appear as moral judgment.
It may show up as hatred projected onto the other.
It may turn into religious or ideological fanaticism.
It may become a compulsive quest for purity.
And, in some cases, it may erupt in violence.

Jung taught us that what is not recognized within us ends up being lived out in a distorted way — usually on top of other people.

Integrating the shadow does not mean obeying it.
It does not mean justifying evil.
It does not mean abandoning ethics or responsibility.

Integrating the shadow means giving these forces within us a name, a place, and a limit.

Within many people there is a dark wolf that has been chained by guilt, by religion, by the fear of rejection, or by the need to please.

The wolf does not need to attack in order to exist.
It can learn to live in the forest of the soul under a firm and compassionate gaze.

Thus the shadow ceases to be a chaotic force and becomes a source of energy, instinct, and even wisdom.

Perhaps the more mature spiritual path is not to wait for a savior to deliver us from external evil, but to learn to sit beside our own inner wolf.

The savior, in this sense, does not come down only from the outside — he is born when a part of us learns to welcome, listen to, and educate what was once feared and banished.

For the world is not healed only by beings of light, but by whole people — who know both their light and their darkness.

True integration does not make us perfect.
It makes us more human.
And perhaps more responsible.

And perhaps each soul, like a mask of God, is here to live out this difficult reconciliation between light and shadow — both within itself and in the world.

We do not need to deny the wolf.
We do not need to unleash it to devour everything.
Perhaps the calling is another: to learn to look into its eyes without running away.

There, it does not rule the house.
But it protects the boundaries.
It points out dangers.
It keeps us from being overly naive.

And perhaps this is how the soul matures: not by expelling evil from the world, but by learning to transform within itself that which it once believed was impossible to love.

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Text and image: Instituto Anemos – A. Paulette