The Persona
The Teaching
The persona is that which in reality one is not, but which oneself as well as others think one is.
The persona is a kind of mask, designed on the one hand to make a definite impression upon others, and on the other to conceal the true nature of the individual.
The word 'persona' is derived from the Latin for 'mask' — the resonating mask worn by actors in Greek and Roman drama, designed to project and amplify the voice. The persona was literally a megaphone for the character. Behind the mask, the actor remained.
We all wear masks appropriate to our various roles — the professional, the parent, the competent adult, the one who is fine. None of these is false exactly. But none is complete. Behind every persona lives the person that each one is in God's eyes.
Commentary
The word persona has a history most people never consider. In Greco-Roman theater, the mask was not merely cosmetic, it was architectural, designed with a resonating chamber that amplified the actor's voice to the back of the open-air amphitheater. The persona was a megaphone for the character being played. The actor behind it remained themselves.
Jung observed that the face presented to the world is always, to some degree, a performance, not dishonest, but curated. The professional is more composed than the private person. The adult in public is more fine than they are at home. This is not hypocrisy. It is the social necessity of a life lived among others.
What the highly sensitive person experiences is a perceptual breakthrough of the persona. The microexpression that flashes for a quarter of a second before the mask reasserts itself. The electromagnetic field beneath the composed surface. The empath receives both the persona and what is behind it simultaneously.
Thomas Merton's Louisville epiphany was this perception taken to its mystical conclusion. He saw through every persona simultaneously and what he found behind them was the shining. 'There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.'