Some Initial Remarks on Jung's Shadow Archetype. A Clew to a new project?

I have just been watching a biographical documentary by BBC about Carl Gustav Jung.  I am only now beginning to address my continued and (as-of-yet) unquenched interest in Jung's work.  The structure of his Analytical Psychology are quite agreeable to the conclusions I arrived at during my recent Cassirer project (my M.A. Thesis: "The Epistemological Foundations for Ernst Cassirer's Methodology for the Humanities: Towards a Critical Phenomenology of Culture").  One such conclusion arrived at is that the "basis phenomenon" (Urphänomen) of Goethe, Hegel, and Cassirer will necessarily take the centre stage for the structure of a Cassirerian Phenomenology of Culture.

Looking over the basic structures of Jung's Analytic Psychology, I am quite intrigued by Jung's three basic archetypes: the animus/anima archetype, the persona archetype, and the shadow archetype.

For the time being, however, I am particularily interested in the shadow archetype.  Here is something I wrote in my notes when I first heard Dr. Marie-Louise von Franz discussing personal and collective shadows and the actions of millions of Germans during the hegemony of the National Socialists.  Her words (which can be viewed here) led me to this first response, which will perhaps lend to the shape of my new project involving Jung.

"The dark dogs that often lead us along on this walk of life are our personal and our collective shadows.  They are revealed in critical moments of personal and collective neuroses.  We discover our shadow during those moments when our personal and/or collective drives overpower our (for lack of a more precise terminology) rational decision-making processes and lead to actions beyond our power of rational restraint.  In these moments of "passion", the shape of our acts reveal to us our "dark side", our shadow.  But there is also a radiance revealed in our actions.  It is up to us to explore both and decide which will be given free reign, and which will be actively restrained for some particular 'rationale' or 'value' to be observed and upheld." (from my personal, unpublished notes).

I look forward for exploring Jung's ideas more deeply, as I have always had a feeling his thoughts would reveal to us something truly primordial about the human spirit and the phenomona of culture.  As with Cassirer's work, it seems that Jung's Analytic Psychology is as much (or more) a theory of meaning than a theory of knowledge or of consciousness.  It is a current conviction of mine that any honest examination of consciousness must tied closely to the formation of a theory of meaning. Indeed, such an examination must be directed by the structures of this theory of meaning in order to achieve any kind of phenomenological clarity.

If any readers have suggestions for futher reading regarding Jung and his analytic psychology, please let me know!