Meet the Author

Cody Peterson is a desert rat, his life a pilgrimage into places few will go. The deserted slot canyons and sandstone monoliths of the American Southwest—many of which are named after the god-images he writes about—carved the way he sees the world. Yet, Cody’s life has been shaped even more by the mystery of compulsion. After years of homelessness and trips to jail, he finally sobered up, picking up the pen instead. Now he has set off on the sketchiest traverse of all—the journey within. By day, Cody works in construction, by night he writes.

The Shadow of a Figure of Light

The Archetype of the Alcoholic and the Journey to Enlightenment

“Cody Peterson has written a book whose extension is deep, wide, and high.  It rests on the solid foundations of careful scholarship and personal experience, it extends the understanding of alcoholism beyond the reductive neuro-physiological explanations, and it elevates the vision of Bill Wilson and AA using the psycho-spiritual wisdom of C.G. Jung. It’s a very readable book and highly to be recommended to anyone with an interest in the practical use of analytical psychology for addiction to anything, including the ego.”

—Murray Stein, Ph.D., author of The Mystery of Transformation—

The Shadow of a Figure of Light: the Archetype of the Alcoholic and the Journey to Enlightenment delves into the nature of modern psychospiritual transformation by examining the human thirst for wholeness through the lens of alcoholism and addiction. Establishing an unknown thread that ties renowned psychiatrist C.G. Jung to Alcoholics Anonymous co-founder Bill Wilson, Peterson shows how their methodologies each stemmed from an ancient shamanistic source constellated through what he has coined the archetype of the Alcoholic. Painting the Twelve Steps as a modern myth, the author presents the Alcoholic as a paradoxical image leading us towards enlightenment amid a deepening, culture-wide spiritual crisis.

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