But I think if you look at the rest of the wiki article, containing the long passage from Alice Bailey, the dweller becomes more clearly aligned with the shadow self:Jasper wrote:The parasitical thing also goes along with the stuff I pasted earlier in the thread about The Dweller on the Threshold and the shadow.
In Jungian psychology, the shadow or "shadow aspect" may refer to (1) an unconscious aspect of the personality which the conscious ego does not identify in itself. Because one tends to reject or remain ignorant of the least desirable aspects of one's personality, the shadow is largely negative (…)It’s hard to look at “the shadow self” and “the dweller on the threshold” in Twin Peaks as being identical, even though Hawk seems to more or less imply this in his speech to Cooper. When we examine the descriptions of the Jungian shadow and the original notion of The Dweller on the Threshold, I think it’s a satisfying solution to look at things in this way:The Dweller on the Threshold refers to a purported invisible and possibly malevolent entity that attaches to a human being. The term was first used by Bulwer-Lytton in his novel Zanoni.
• The Shadow Self = Doppelgänger
• The Dweller on the Threshold = Any given lodge spirit who attaches to a human (MIKE, BOB, etc.)
When viewing things from this perspective, the following comments by Lynch (from two separate interviews) more or less make sense:
INTERVIEWER: So, was Cooper occupied by BOB in the script before you changed it?
LYNCH: No, but Coop wasn’t occupied by BOB. Part of him was. There are two Coops in there, and the one that came out was, you know, with BOB.So, the two Coops are the two sides of himself, not two physical Coops (and I think a lot of us, if not most of us, agree on this reading). BOB has not taken over Coop, rather Coop is in a battle with himself, and the last time we saw him, the “shadow self” had taken complete control. BOB has enabled this state of affairs, and has hitched along in a parasitic manner, perhaps enabling BOB's harvesting of Garmonbozia.INTERVIEWER: Why was Cooper possessed by Bob at the end? It seems like he’s lost it.
LYNCH: Well the thing is he hasn’t been possessed. It’s the doppelgänger thing, the idea of two sides to everyone, he’s really up against himself.
So we have the shadow self of Coop on the loose, and the light part of Coop trapped in the lodge (or unconscious, if one prefers). We then have BOB, as The Dweller on the Threshold, attached to Coop’s body, along for the ride and possibly assuming some level of influence.
" "From ancient recesses of the memory, from a deeply rooted past, which is definitely recalled, and from the racial and the individual subconscious (or founded and established thought reservoirs and desires, inherited and inherent) there emerges from individual past lives and experience, that which is the sumtotal of all instinctual tendencies, of all inherited glamours, and of all phases of wrong mental attitudes; to these, (as they constitute a blended whole) we give the name of the Dweller on the Threshold. This Dweller is the sumtotal of all the personality characteristics which have remained unconquered and unsubtle, and which must be finally overcome before initiation can be taken. Each life sees some progress made; some personality defects straightened out, and some real advance effected. But the unconquered residue, and the ancient liabilities are numerous, and excessively potent, and - when the soul contact's adequately established - there eventuates a life wherein the highly developed and powerful personality becomes, in itself, the Dweller on the Threshold. Then the Angel of the Presence and the Dweller stand face to face, and something must then be done. Eventually, the light of the personal self fades out and wanes in the blaze of glory which emanates from the Angel. Then the greater glory obliterates the lesser. This is, however, only possible when the personality eagerly enters into this relation with the Angel, recognises itself as the Dweller, and - as a disciple - begins the battle between the pairs of opposites, and enters into the tests of Scorpio. These tests and trials are ever self-initiated; the disciple puts himself into the positive or conditioning environment wherein the trials and the discipline are unavoidable and inevitable. When the mind has reached a relatively high stage of development, the memory aspect is evoked in a new and conscious manner, and then every latent predisposition, every racial and national instinct, every unconquered situation, and every controlling fault, rises to the surface of consciousness, and then - the fight is on."
I don't think Bob would be the Dweller, unless we conceptualize him as kind of accretion of human emotions rather than a transdimensional being with an independent identity.
To keep in line with your reading, I think it might make more sense to see the Dweller as one of the inherent features of the Lodge which Bob can use to his advantage. And it would also explain why the Dweller is part of Hawk's Lodge lore that ostensibly predates the invasion of these particular spirits.
Incidentally, if we want to play with the idea that Bob, Mike, etc are late arrivals in the Lodge, it would be interesting if they arrived in conjunction with white settlers of Washington; a spirit world colonization to mirror the real world one, as well as a mirror of the fact that Westerners brought over many diseases to which the indigenous population was unaccustomed. Perhaps this was a concurrent spiritual disease. I could see Frost possibly toying with this idea more than Lynch (who seems largely uninterested in history as a subject). Though at that point we're kind of reverting back to the idea of the spirits existing in conjunction with/as projections of humans rather than transcending physical boundaries - I mean, why would they have to wait for English settlers to get to Washington for them to get there as well?
Each new possibility brings up new questions and problems to work out haha.
