Most treatments of Hitler vilify him, which is not difficult to do. He essentially exists in the mind of history as an object lesson of who not to be and what not to do. It is easy to forget that his policies prior to WWII rebuilt the German economy and were widely admired and praised not only in Germany, but in Britain and the US. For example, in the mid 1930’s Churchill said, “”Those who have met Herr Hitler have found a highly competent, cool, well-informed functionary with an agreeable manner, a disarming smile, and few have been unaffected by a subtle personal magnetism.” In 1938, Hitler was Man of the Year in the US magazine Time. He was praised, among other things, for his ‘dealing with the Jewish problem’. Some of the primary and more famous Americans and companies that supported Hitler’s fascist regime include William Randolph Hearst, Joseph Kennedy (JFK’s father), Charles Lindbergh, John Rockefeller, Andrew Mellon (head of Alcoa, banker, and Secretary of Treasury), DuPont, General Motors, Standard Oil (now Exxon), Ford, ITT, Allen Dulles (later head of the CIA), Prescott Bush (senator and father of H.W. Bush and grandfather of G.W. Bush), National City Bank, and General Electric. Ford and GM supplied the Third Reich with trucks and equipment as well as invested money in I.G. Farben plants. Standard Oil supplied the fascists with fuel. US Steel and Alcoa supplied them with critically needed metals. American banks gave them billions of dollars worth of loans.
“The outbreak of war in September 1939 resulted inevitably in the full conversion by GM and Ford of their Axis plants to the production of military aircraft and trucks…. On the ground, GM and Ford subsidiaries built nearly 90 percent of the armored “mule” 3-ton half-trucks and more than 70 percent of the Reich’s medium and heavy-duty trucks. These vehicles, according to American intelligence reports, served as “the backbone of the German Army transportation system.” (From a report by the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary in 1974) After the war began, these military vehicles were built by US firms operating in Germany with slave and concentration camp labor, who received no wages, thereby maximizing profits, which were channeled through Swiss bank intermediaries.
Fascism is essentially corporatism: running government like a business for the benefit of business. As such, Hitler is still very much alive and busy running the world. There is much in the US today that would meet with his approval: the destruction of unions, the stifling of free speech, universal surveillance, the militarization of police, the reduction of welfare, the desire to eliminate the minimum wage if it were only possible to do so, the world-wide reach of the military, the control of government by financiers and corporate lobbies, and the hatred of anything that re-distributes wealth away from the business class. Consequently, many of the factors that supported Hitler’s rise to power are still with us today. In addition, the potentials expressed in Hitler’s personality and rule exist as latent possibilities within each of us, which explains much of the non-ending fascination with all things Hitler.
The following interview is an example of what would be called “reincorporating disowned shadow” by Jung and Ken Wilber. What those models miss, and what this and many other IDL interviews indicate, is that “disowned shadow” does not view itself as disowned shadow. That assumption is a waking interpretation and projection. That determination has nothing to do with how these perspectives see themselves. The only reason these misunderstandings and distortions persist is because no one bothers to interview the perspectives themselves. Instead, we assume we do not need to because we already know what they are: disowned shadow. What is this if not both grandiosity and manipulative control by waking identity?
What most people call disowned shadow or disowned “self-aspects,” usually describe themselves, when they are interviewed, as both personifications of aspects of the individual and largely autonomous and competent in ways that waking identity never has been. They typically embody perceptions, perspectives, and approaches to problems that are creative and helpful. How can such perspectives be disowned shadow when they were never owned? If they never were aspects of self, how is it that they are repressed are disowned? The answer is obvious: they are neither disowned, nor are they “shadow,” because they generally score higher in some, if not most, of the six core qualities (confidence, compassion, wisdom, acceptance, inner peace, and witnessing) than waking identity does. This implies that it would be more accurate to view waking identity as their shadow, however this is not true either. Waking identity is the shadow of a mixture of previous scripting, choices, and emerging potentials, not present ones. Dream characters, such as Hitler in the following dream, and interviewed personifications of life issues, such as Hitler as a character from the world socio-cultural dream, are either partially incorporated or yet-to-be-incorporated potentials.
Here is the dream:
I have been given Hitler, who is unconscious or in some sort of state of hibernation, to look after. I am worried that he could wake up at any minute. I am carrying him around in a car. He’s laid out flat. I find some guy to lie down with him and keep an eye on him. All the time I am trying to figure out what to do with him.
I am running toward my car, which is parked catty-corner, on the other side of a busy intersection, just before the light, at the bottom of a hill. I have to stop for traffic. I see a long, low metallic vehicle cruise by. Then as I walk toward my car I realize another one has pulled up next to my car and five or so big guys are completely going through it, taking everything apart. It could be government, it could be military, but these people are anonymous and they are unstoppable. A woman in the group sees me and starts yelling questions at me. I know I’m going to be caught up in whatever this is about. I vaguely feel I carried something contraband in my car. Hitler?
Why do you think that you had this dream?
I went to Prora day before yesterday, near Binz, on the island of Rügen, in the Baltic off the northeast coast of Germany. This is where Hitler had a huge “vacation paradise,” stretching for miles along the Baltic sea, built for 20,000 visitors at a time. It was never completed. Although I’ve been to the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag, it was the closest I have felt to a sense of the reality of Hitler since I’ve lived in Germany. In the museum at Prora there are all sorts of pre-WWII and WWII Nazi memorabilia and newspaper articles on the complex with his picture, and those of young, happy faces of people who were happy to be in the German military and had no idea what horrors were in store for them. As I looked at this powerful and personal history from a German perspective, I could imagine being alive then. The dream felt like I was responsible for Hitler, or at least his corpse. Here is what “Hitler” had to say:
“I’m in some sort of coma-like state. I can’t wait to wake up to reassert my authority and will. I get what I want. I can make almost anyone, most of the time, do what I want and get me whatever I want. I do it through fear. I like that you are afraid of me. You should be, or I’ll kill you, or worse. I do not like that I am in this coma-like state. I do not like that my power can be checked. I personify the potential of awakened malevolence within yourself.”
“If I could take whatever form I desired, I wouldn’t go into comas. I would be clever enough to always stay well ahead of those who are trying to catch me, to limit me, to take away, or destroy my power to do whatever I want to whomever I want. On a scale of zero to ten in the six core qualities I score myself ten in confidence because I have great confidence in my ability to intimidate people into doing what I want. I have great confidence in the power of fear, lies, and buying people off. I am an eight in acceptance because I accept who and what I am. Do you? I am a seven in wisdom because, while others would say that I am merely smart, I have a great deal of experience in what works and what does not. You may not like my type of wisdom; you may not agree with it, but it gets real results that people have to respect, whether they like it or not. Most people secretly wish they had my ability to get what I want. You do too, if you were honest with yourself. I am also a seven in witnessing. I could not have accomplished what I have already accomplished if I did not have considerable witnessing ability. I score myself a zero in compassion and peace of mind. Who needs them? I would only want to change if it woke me up out of this coma without changing me. I couldn’t be me if I had any desire for either compassion or inner peace.”
“If this dreamer scored like I do in these qualities he would accomplish his goals, that’s for sure. He already has considerable inner peace and a good portion of compassion. What I have that he doesn’t is unstoppable confidence, wisdom about dealing with people from years of experience, no self-doubt, and a determination to follow through with my plans. Using me to get what he wants scares him, because he thinks it’s playing with fire, unscrupulous, and may set the worst parts of him free to be destructive. But I am not only more than him, as unaccessed and unutilized potentials, but also a part of him, and I represent aspects of his life force that are not only effective, but whose absence not only keep him from being whole, but keep him afraid of himself.”
“If I were in charge of this dreamer’s life I would be in command, in control. I would use others to get what I want. I would not worry about whether or not I was manipulating them or whether the end was justifying the means. I would instead know that others were getting some of their needs met or they wouldn’t be giving me what I want. He can do a whole lot more of this without getting into the Drama Triangle. That’s what he needs to be afraid of, not me. You can learn that you can access the strengths you associate with the threatening, selfish parts of yourself and humanity without being threatening or selfish. That one lesson is enough!”
“It would be helpful for this dreamer to become me when he needs determined, willful focus to see his tasks through to completion, regardless of what they are. This is what people secretly admire about me and what scares the hell out of them. I have come into this dreamer’s life in this dream to get him to see how he’s thrown the baby out with the bath water, to have him see how he has disowned strengths he needs out of his fear that he will be devoured by his weaknesses.”
“His fear of becoming or appearing to be like me is what is most likely to have him forget or ignore this dream and what I am saying. He needs to realize that is grandiosity. He in no way has what it takes to become me. It’s a twisted form of narcissism for him to imagine that he could be ruthless or malevolent to the extent that I, the historical Hitler, was. It’s neither his nature nor in his agenda, and he has the self-awareness and skill sets, such as these interviews, to catch those tendencies as they arise.”
“This dreamer had this dream because he needs to own positive qualities that he has disowned out of fear of misusing them. The stripping of his car was a way of saying, “You have this Hitler aspect, and you are going to have to admit it and deal with it.”
What this dreamer heard “Hitler” say was that it is better to understand and appreciate the fascination of evil and to learn from it than to pretend that you have none of those qualities or capabilities and thereby be both controlled and limited by both the dishonesty and fear of it. It is important to claim all of who you are, good, bad, and ugly. Trust that the universe is big enough to accept and use all of who you are. When you get “wake up calls” from your dreams or through IDL interviews, you not only awaken your strengths and potentials, but those parts of yourself that you fear and that you need to face to become whole.
How do you deal with your potential for evil? If you ignore it, repress it, or fight it, you split off from yourself capabilities you need to be a whole person. Most people do this; they disown their power out of fear of misuse or embarrassing failure. This leaves the worlds of commerce, sport, and governments open to the predators and greedy of the world. Instead of blaming them for the harm they bring to society and the environment, wouldn’t we do better to investigate your disowning of your own emerging potentials?
Here is a transcript of the original interview:
What are three fundamental life issues that you are dealing with now in your life?
1. Reaching children with IDL.
2. Networking.
3. Initiative, drive, focus
Tell me a dream you remember. It can be an old one, a repetitive dream, a nightmare, or one that you’re sure you understand.
I have been given Hitler, who is unconscious or in some sort of state of hibernation, to look after. I am worried that he could wake up at any minute. I am carrying him around in a car. He’s laid out flat. I find some guy to lie down with him and keep an eye on him. All the time I am trying to figure out what to do with him.
I am running toward my car, which is parked catty-corner, on the other side of a busy intersection, just before the light, at the bottom of a hill. I have to stop for traffic. I see a long, low metallic vehicle cruise by. Then as I walk toward my car I realize another one has pulled up next to my car and five or so big guys are completely going through it, taking everything apart. It could be government, it could be military, but it is anonymous and it is unstoppable. A woman in the group sees me and starts yelling questions at me. I know I’m going to be caught up in whatever this is about. I vaguely feel I carried something contraband in my car. Hitler?
Why do you think that you had this dream?
I went to Prora day before yesterday on Rügen, near Binz, where Hitler had a huge “vacation paradise” built for 20,000 at a time. It stretches for miles along the Baltic sea. Although I’ve been to the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag, it was the closest I have felt to a sense of the reality of Hitler since I’ve lived in Germany. In the museum there were all sorts of pre-WWII and WWII Nazi memorabilia and newspaper articles on Prora with his picture, and I could imagine being alive then.
If it were playing at a theater, what name would be on the marquee?
Being Responsible for Hitler.
These are the characters in the dream…
Hitler, my car, my friend, the intersection, vehicles, woman, guys
If one character had something especially important to tell you, which would it be?
Hitler
Now remember how as a child you liked to pretend you were a teacher or a doctor? It’s easy and fun for you to imagine that you are the shape that took form from your color and answer some questions I ask, saying the first thing that comes to your mind. If you wait too long to answer, that’s not the character answering – that’s YOU trying to figure out the right thing to say!
(Character,) would you please tell me about yourself and what you are doing?
I’m in some sort of coma-like state. I can’t wait to wake up to reassert my authority and will.
What do you like most about yourself? What are your strengths?
I get what I want. I can make almost anyone, most of the time, do what I want, get me whatever I want. I do it through fear. I like that you are afraid of me. You should be, or I’ll kill you, or worse.
What do you dislike most about yourself? Do you have weaknesses? What are they?
I do not like that I am in this coma-like state. I do not like that my power can be checked.
(Character), you are in this person’s life experience, correct? They created you, right?_____ (Character), what aspect of this person do you represent or most closely personify?
The potential of awakened malevolence within himself.
(Character,) if you could be anywhere you wanted to be and take any form you desired, would you change? If so, how?
I wouldn’t go into comas. I would be clever enough to always stay well ahead of those who are trying to catch me, to limit me, to take away, limit, or destroy my power to do whatever I want to whomever I want.
(Continue, answering as the transformed object, if it chose to change.)
(Character), how would you score yourself 0-10, in confidence, compassion, wisdom, acceptance, peace of mind, and witnessing? Why?
Confidence: 10 I have great confidence in my ability to intimidate people into doing what I want. I have great confidence in the power of fear, lies, and buying people off.
Compassion: 0
Wisdom 7 You would say that I am merely smart, but I have a great deal of experience in what works and what does not. You may not like my type of wisdom; you may not agree with it, but it gets real results that people have to respect, whether they like it or not. Most people secretly wish they had my ability to get what I want. You do too, if you were honest with yourself.
Acceptance: 8 I accept who and what I am. Do you?
Inner Peace: 0 I am not interested in inner peace. I want more power and control.
Witnessing: 7 I could not have accomplished what I have already accomplished if I did not have considerable witnessing ability.
(Character,) if you scored tens in all six of these qualities, would you be different? If so, how?
Of course. I would only want to change if it woke me up out of this coma without changing me. I couldn’t be me if I had any desire for either compassion or inner peace.
How would the life of the person who created you be different if he/she naturally scored like you do in all six of these qualities all the time?
He would accomplish his goals, that’s for sure. He already has considerable inner peace and a good portion of compassion. What I have that he doesn’t is unstoppable confidence, wisdom about dealing with people, no self-doubt, and a determination to follow through with my plans. Using me as a part of him to get what he want scares him, because he thinks it’s playing with fire, unscrupulous, and may set the worst parts of him free to be destructive. But I am a part of him, and I represent aspects of his life force that are not only effective, but whose absence not only keep him from being whole, but keep him afraid of himself.
If you could live the life of the person who created you for him, how would you live it differently?
I would be in command, in control. I would use others to get what I want. I would not worry about whether or not I was manipulating them or whether the end was justifying the means. I would instead know that others were getting some of their needs met or they wouldn’t be giving me what I want. He can do a whole lot more of this without getting into the Drama Triangle. That’s what he needs to be afraid of, not me.
If you could live this person’s waking life for him today, would you handle his three life issues differently? If so, how?
1. Give away his book on nightmares. Get the names of sources on line that deal with them, night terrors, and PTSD. Send them unsolicited copies.
2. He needs to then network with those people. See how that goes. Then consider duplicating with other manuscripts.
3. Take this project and practice initiative, drive, and focus toward it. If you focus on other things you will lose your focus.
What three life issues would you focus on if you were in charge of his life?
Learning that you can access the strengths you associate with the threatening, selfish parts of yourself without being threatening or selfish. That one is enough!
In what life situations would it be most beneficial for this person to imagine that they are you and act as you would?
When you need determined, willful focus to see your task through to completion, regardless of what it is. This is what people secretly admire about me and what scares the hell out of them.
Why do you think that you are in this person’s life?
To get him to see how he’s thrown the baby out with the bath water. To have him see how he has disowned strengths he needs out of his fear that he will be devoured by his weaknesses.
How is this person most likely to ignore what you are saying to them?
His fear of becoming or appearing to be like Hitler.
What would you recommend that they do about that?
Realize that is grandiosity. He in no way has what it takes to become a Hitler. It’s a twisted form of narcissism for him to imagine that he could be ruthless or malevolent. It’s neither his nature nor in his agenda, and he has the self-awareness, including his Sangha, to catch those tendencies as they arise.
I think this person had this dream because
He needs to own positive qualities that he has disowned out of fear of misusing them.
I think this dream event happened or (some character) was in the dream because…
The stripping of his car was a way of saying, “You have this Hitler aspect, and you are going to have to admit it and deal with it.”
What have you heard yourself say?
That it is better to understand and appreciate the fascination of evil and to learn from it than to pretend that you are not that and be both controlled and limited by your dishonesty and fear of it.
If this experience were a wake-up call from your soul, what do you think it would be saying to you?
Claim all of who you are, good, bad, and ugly. Trust that the universe is big enough to accept and use all of you. That when you get “wake up calls” from your dreams or through IDL interviews, you not only awaken your strengths and potentials, but those parts of yourself that you fear and that you need to face to become whole.
