Growing down into the world by becoming useful to it and helping shape it requires getting down below the world. To be an elder, benefactor, conservator, and mentor calls for a learning about shadows, an instruction from the "dead" (that is, from what has gone before, become invisible, yet continues to vivify our lives with its influences). The "dead" come back as ancestors, especially in times of crisis, when we are at a loss. Then the dead "awaken," offering a deeper knowledge and support. They have already fallen; they know the pits, hence their enormous resources. They do not have to return as literal voices and visions, for they are already palpable in whatever is pulling us down, wherever we can't keep up. They are the force in the psyche's gravity.
— James Hillman, The Force of Character