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by Brett on September 13, 2011 · 31 comments

in A Man's Life, On Manhood

This is the third part of a series on the archetypes of mature masculinity based on the book King, Warrior, Magician, Lover by Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette. If you haven’t already, I highly recommend reading the introduction to the series first. Also, keep in mind that these posts are a little more esoteric than our normal fare, and are meant to be contemplated and thoughtfully reflected upon.

As you may remember, the boyhood archetypes are positive but immature energies that, with proper masculine guidance, develop into the archetypes of mature manhood. Last time we talked about two of the four boyhood archetypes–the Divine Child and the Precocious Child–suggested by Moore and Gillette. Today we’ll talk the other two–the Oedipal Child and the Hero.  Let’s just dive right into it.

The Oedipal Child

Did you initially recoil a little when you read the name of this archetype? It’s easy to read “Oedipal Child” and think “Oedipus Complex.” You know, Freud’s idea that boys have a repressed sexual desire for their mothers. Yuck, right? Well, hold on a sec.

True, Moore does argue that a boy’s yearning for “the nurturing, infinitely good, infinitely beautiful Mother,” is at the root of this archetype. But this longing is not for a boy’s actual mother, but rather for the feminine energy of the “Great Mother–the Goddess in her many forms in the myths and legends of many peoples and cultures.”

Okay, that probably doesn’t help very much either. This is one of those places where Moore and Gillette get a little too New Agey for me, and where their prose can put distance between their ideas and many modern men.

The way I think of the Oedipal Child archetype is to relate it to the philosophy of the Romantic period, which I really enjoy. Think Ralph Waldo Emerson. The Romantics explored their inner life, celebrating the power of imagination and intuition, seeking to feel and experience life deeply, and extolling the virtues of passion and free expression. They sought to tap into the energy that emanated from Mother Nature. The Oedipal Child  archetype also gives a boy the desire to forge relationships with others and the affection and warmth to nurture those relationships. Thus at the heart of this archetypes is the desire for connection–a connection with oneself, with the deeper forces of life, with nature, and with other people. In this way, the Oedipal Child archetype contains the seeds of a man’s spirituality.

See? It’s a good thing! At least when it’s nurtured into the mature Lover archetype by masculine energy. If it’s not–these shadows are the result:

The Shadows of the Oedipal Child

The Mama’s Boy. Instead of tapping into the positive feminine energy associated with “the Great Mother,” the Mama’s Boy fixates on the energy as embodied by his real mother (and other women); he is too connected to his mom.  Jung would argue that this shadow archetype takes control when there is no father, or a weak father in the home.

The Mama’s Boy shadow manifests itself in various ways. The most obvious is the boy (or man) who’s “tied to Mama’s apron strings.” He never wants to offend, hurt, or worry his mother. He lives to please dear old mom, even if that means putting her desires and wishes above his own. Nothing gives him more satisfaction than hearing his mom say, “That’s a good boy.”

Many men never break out from under the influence of the Mama’s Boy shadow. They always acquiesce to their mother’s wishes and put what mom wants ahead of what their wives want (and what they themselves want). These men never learn that man was made to leave his mother and father and cleave unto his wife only.

Other ways the Mama’s Boy shadow rears its ugly head in adult men is womanizing and excessive porn use. An overbearing desire for union with one’s mother and a failure to harness feminine energy in a healthy way will result in a man looking to fill that void and find that connection in mere mortal women. But of course mortal women can never fill that role as the Mother archetype. So a man under the power of the Mama’s Boy shadow moves from failed relationship to failed relationship or spends countless hours each week looking at porn in hopes that he’ll find a woman who’ll fulfill his need.

The Dreamer. The passive shadow of the Oedipal Child archetype is the Dreamer. Instead of seeking connection with others (especially with Mother), the Dreamer is aloof. While the positive Oedipal Child archetype fuels a boy’s spirituality, the Dreamer pushes this desire for other-worldliness to an extreme. He cuts himself off from human relationships because he would rather be alone with his thoughts. While there’s certainly nothing wrong with introspection and solitude, the boy under the influence of the Dreamer shadow too often has his head in the clouds and drifts away from reality. He spends too much time dreaming, and not enough time learning how to have relationships with other people, and thus developing the social skills needed to make his dreams comes true. He is stunted and unconnected.

Accessing the Oedipal Child Archetype as a Man

A man who has successfully integrated the Oedipal Child into his psyche understands the gentle part of being a gentleman. He can be warm, even “sweet” with others, and he can be introspective and spiritual while still keeping his feet on the ground. He isn’t afraid to tap into “feminine” energy, but he isn’t dominated by it either. He loves his mother,  and has learned much from her, but he is decidedly his own man.

The Hero

Think back to when you were a teenager. Remember that feeling of expanding independence? Little by little you started to rely less and less on your parents for your basic needs. You clamored for more freedoms and for your parents to get off your back.

Also, if you were like most teenage boys, you probably took part in activities (sometimes very risky activities) to test your mettle and your ability to overcome fear. You wanted to prove to your friends, and more importantly to yourself, that you were “man enough” to take on any challenge that came your way.

When I was in Vermont a few years ago, Kate and I went to this swimming hole in the woods. The water was cold and deep and was surrounded by sheer cliffs. It was perfect for cliff diving, but still pretty treacherous. While Kate and I swam, we watched a group of teenage boys dive from the highest point of the cliff into the water below. Every dive became more elaborate and dangerous.

Kate elbowed me and asked “So, are you going to jump?”

“Nope.”

I was suddenly struck with the feeling of being old. I thought back to the time when I was a teenager camping in New Mexico with some friends. We found a lake with 40 foot sheer cliffs and spent the afternoon jumping, flipping, and diving into the deep water below. We pushed ourselves to do ever more daring jumps. We wanted to test ourselves. Now here I was 13 years later and I was content just swimming along the edge, watching these young men hurtle themselves into the air and plummet into the water.

That desire for independence we all had as young men and that almost reckless abandon those boys in Vermont had are manifestations of the Hero archetype.

The Hero archetype is unarguably the most common figure found in myths. Joseph Campbell detailed the use of the Hero archetype in his seminal work, The Hero With a Thousand Faces. In that book, Campbell describes an archetypal journey that all mythological heroes must take. Star Wars is a perfect example of the Hero’s Journey.  Luke Skywalker begins the story as a mere “farm boy” on the planet Tatooine. By the end of the first trilogy he has morphed into a Hero who saves the galaxy from evil.

While we’re accustomed to thinking of becoming a hero as the end-all of existence, Moore argues that the hero archetype is still an immature energy that must be further developed into the mature Warrior archetype. Unlike the mature Warrior who fights and battles for a cause bigger than himself, the immature Hero fights and battles mainly for himself. The Hero definitely has ideals–but these ideals are used for a self-serving purpose–to create an identity that facilitates the process of becoming his own man. When you were a teenager, you probably latched onto an identity like this–you were the super-liberal guy, or the super-Christian guy, or the non-comformist Goth guy, and so on. The Hero’s only goal is to win his personal independence, break free from the feminine influence of his mother, and enter fully into manhood. Moreover, while the mature Warrior knows his limitations, the Hero doesn’t have that sort of self-awareness which often results in physical or emotional ruin.

The Hero is usually the last of the boyhood archetypes to develop and is the peak of psychological development in boys. It is the last developmental stage before a boy transitions into manhood. According to Moore, this transformation from boy to man can only occur through the “death” of the Hero. Through initiation and rites of passage, the boy is symbolically killed only to be reborn as a man. Unfortunately, because many men in the  modern West lack a rite of passage into manhood, they remain psychologically stuck in adolescence.

The Shadows of the Hero Archetype

The Grandstander Bully. The young man under the influence of the Grandstander Bully demands respect from others and will unleash his wrath both physically and verbally if he doesn’t get it.  He has let the Hero’s sense of invulnerability mushroom into an arrogant and inflated sense of self. Thus the boy under the Bully shadow takes unnecessary and foolish risks, and his hubris oftentimes leads to his own destruction.

This shadow very often follows a boy into manhood. Do you know a grown man who suffers from intense road rage or blows up at the waitress who gets his order wrong? That’s the boyhood bully shadow at work. The man who is still haunted by this shadow believes he is superior to all others, and when his inflated sense of self is threatened–ie., when the world does not cater to his needs–he loses his temper and lashes out.

But underneath the Grandstander Bully’s posturing and false bravado lies an insecure coward, and he must fight to keep this fact hidden from everyone else. This insecurity makes the Grandstander Bully sensitive to any insinuation that he isn’t man enough, and so he lacks the confidence to incorporate any “feminine” energy into his life. This is the man who who scoffs at meditation or introspection as “sissy” stuff.

The Coward. The passive polar shadow of the Hero archetype is the Coward. Lacking the Hero’s courage, the boy under this shadow avoids confrontation; whether the conflict is physical or mental or moral, the Coward cannot stand up for himself. He is a conformist–a boy who always goes along with the crowd and does what others tell him to do. Even when fighting back is the right decision, he will walk away and rationalize his choice as the “manlier” thing to do.

But the boy possessed by the Coward cannot even convince himself of his own excuses, and he despises himself for his cowardice. He knows he is a doormat, and as people continue to walk over him, he gets angrier and angrier until he reaches a breaking point and lashes out in full Grandstander Bully fashion.  It would have been far better for this boy to handle conflict in a healthier way.

Accessing the Hero Archetype as a Man

I believe the hero archetype is the most difficult for a man to successfully integrate.

On the one hand, teenagers see things as black and white, and despise the wishy-washy convictions and play-it-safe attitude of adults. Teenage Brett would have been disappointed with adult Brett’s decision not to jump off the cliff.

On the other hand, adults shake their heads at the foolish risks young men take and laugh at the unrealistic idealism of young people, telling them they’ll change their mind once they see how the world “really is.”

The complete man must walk the line between these two camps. He must come to understand his own limitations and the true nature of the obstacles in his way;  otherwise, he cannot be effective in bringing about real change. At the same time, he cannot lose heart while pushing up against those challenges, and stumble into the kind of cynical apathy that makes seeking greatness seem an impossible task and an entirely worthless endeavor. He needs to be able to sometimes take youthful risks in order to achieve his goals. If a man can pilot his ship through this Charybdis and Scylla, he can become the heroic warrior.

Tagged as: KWML

Related Posts

1. The Four Archetypes of Mature Masculinity: The Boyhood Archetypes (Part I)

2. The Four Archetypes of the Mature Masculine: Introduction

3. The Four Archetypes of the Mature Masculine: The Warrior

4. The Four Archetypes of the Mature Masculine: The Lover

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The differing time-scales of male and female development are found at the axis between the Lover and the Warrior. Young females are flooded with Lover energy in adolescence while young males are flooded with Warrior energy at the same age. However - men and women pass each other at mid-life on this axis. This is the source of so many divorces and so much inter-gender misunderstanding. Just as the woman at mid-life is powering up into her aggression, her Warrior, a man is discovering the opening of his heart, his Lover. They pass each other in the night, literally pass each other in the night. I want you to think about how this difference is enormously significant.

The Geography of Inner Space in Relation to Theodore Millon's Mapping of Psychopathology

After Dr. Moore published his series of books with Douglas Gillette on the four archetypal structures, David Gutmann's (1987) book, Reclaimed Powers, was pointed out to Dr. Moore. This cross-cultural study of men and women through the life cycle showed this movement of women to more aggression at mid-life and men to more passivity is a universal human fact. It is in the hard wiring.

It follows from this that the trajectory of personal development is radically different for men and women. There are a lot of women who have contempt for their husbands because their husbands have moved into a mid-life limbo, the Lover energy, and are confused and disoriented. When women get to mid-life, they say to themselves, "I've had enough of this servant stuff for other people. I've learned about boundaries now. I've figured out how I have been taken advantage of. Now I'm going to get very clear about what I want, and if this pitiful excuse for a man that I'm married to doesn't get his stuff together, I'm going to leave him." And they are ready for that. They have Warrior virtues at the point where their husbands have lost them.

It goes like this. She says, "Just do it, and stop whining." He says, "But I feel, but I want, … couldn't we…" Then she says, "Just get out of the way. I've got stuff I've got to do." So she decides to take the helm. She is not feeling wimped out and she is not overwhelmed with feelings of "Oh, this is painful," or "This is uncomfortable," or "What will they think?" or "Will he leave me?" When she comes up she has that Warrior energy that says "Let's get the job done. I know what I want. I know where I'm going. If you can't come along, then I'll find somebody else." This is radical asymmetry.

When you look in the world, and when you look at Gutmann's book, you notice that women elders are not having as hard a time facing their responsibilities. They are still having a difficult time, but not as hard a time as male elders. Why? The female initiation is not in much better shape than male initiation. According to Gutmann they do better because they are not in a pool of feelings when challenged with responsibilities, while males at mid-life are in the Slough of Despond.

References
Gutmann, D. (1987). Reclaimed powers: Men and women in later life. New York: Basic Books.

Moore, R. (1997). Masculine initiation for the 21st century: The global challenge. The New Warrior Handbook.

The Quartet of Books: The King Within, The Warrior Within, The Magician Within, The Lover Within.

robertmoore-phd.comhttp://www.robertmoore-phd.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=page.display&page_id=35

We are the social animal. We are the cultural animal. We are the ape that creates culture. You put us down anywhere, and we are going to create myths and rituals. With these four foundational powers (King, Warrior, Magician, and Lover), we are going to create the software we need to actualize our hardware, the potentials in our hardware. If you give us long enough, we will create what we need. We will create initiations through culture which correspond to each of these instinctual lines.

The Four Developmental Lines in the Journey to the Center: Maturation Toward the Psychological and Spiritual Cardinal Virtues Arrows indicate movement toward integration and cohesion.

History shows that this is true. In the past, indigenous people created initiations which corresponded to each of these four lines of development. Take the Royal line (King/Queen), for instance. Men did things together which helped them learn how to mentor, and how to be aware of the need for sacrifice on behalf of the whole tribe. However, they did not leave this to chance. This is the key. They did not have the same assumption that contemporary people do, that you just let a person grow up and they will be mature. None of the indigenous people made that mistake.

They also realized - and Gutmann's (1987) book makes this very clear - that the old people of the earth, the tribal peoples, knew that you had better initiate the Warrior in the young man. If you do not initiate the Warrior, then the aggressive energy in a young man is going to damage his community and himself, too. They came up with the software, the tribal initiations, from the Masai to the Zulu to the Zuni, to help the young male learn the proper and appropriate use of aggression. Because he is flooded with it so early in his life, he does not have the life experience to tell him how to use it wisely. The elders must do that.

The old peoples of the earth did not have ordained clergy; instead, they had initiations for men in this energy. Men learned their ritual responsibilities, their initiation into the Magician. There was no such thing as a man in a tribe of indigenous peoples that did not have this ritual responsibility, that did not take his place in the circle of men in the long house. If you have not been in The Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago and looked at the long houses men were in prior to the modern era, then you should plan to do so.

They all knew there had to be some sort of initiation, some sort of ritual place and channel for the erotic, Lover energy. They knew a man needed to power up in the erotic, and they knew that this erotic energy was the universal solvent. Without an initiation, it will dissolved everything - personalities, homes, fortunes, whatever.

Initiation at Midlife
The mid-life transition has a different mid-life dynamic for men than women. Research shows that when men move into mid-life, many of them become depressed, passive, suicidal and addictive world-wide. Men in mid-life, in other words, move from the Warrior energy right into the heart energy, into Lover energy, and a lot of them collapse into a puddle, an abyss, a male mid-life emotional swamp. Renaissance poetry used to call this the "Slough of Despond" (for folks who are not from the South, a slough is an old creek that is full of water moccasins, it's hot and wet and full of quicksand). Even if a man had a good Warrior initiation in the first half of life, he is in danger of losing connection with it when Lover energy floods him. At mid-life, the Warrior must be consolidated to balance the flood of Lover energy and allow it to be integrated into the self.

Masculine Initiation
Time is late and we are in a desperate situation. Look at your political leaders and listen for anybody that is going to step up and name masculine initiation, or the lack of it, as a serious world-wide problem. You are going to have to listen a long time before you hear anybody that is even talking about this, and even longer before you come across anybody who really knows what is going on. Those in the echelons of power do not have a clue that it is not merely economics, it is not merely education, it is not merely any particular social location or television show or rap song, that is the source of our difficulties: it is the whole lack of a system of masculine initiation and eldership.

If you look at the Gutmann book, what does he say? He says that in every indigenous culture the older men bonded together as peace chiefs. They bonded together with the young men to help them understand what all this aggression is for. They offered young males a vision of masculine maturity.

References
Gutmann, D. (1987). Reclaimed powers: Men and women in later life. New York: Basic Books.

Moore, R. (1997). Masculine initiation for the 21st century: The global challenge. The New Warrior Handbook.

The Quartet of Books: The King Within, The Warrior Within, The Magician Within, The Lover Within.

robertmoore-phd.comhttp://www.robertmoore-phd.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=page.display&page_id=31

There is enormous evidence to believe, along with Carl Jung, that there is a Great Code which, when followed, leads a person towards personal wholeness, and that this Great Code is, in fact, your two million year old DNA. There are clues to the task of completing that journey to the center, to the place of personal integration, that are far more specific than many people believe.

Though we are discussing the male psyche, the female journey to the Center will also briefly be discussed to define how it is similar to the male journey to the Center, and how both are different, critically different. The four quarters of mythology - the quarters of the King, the Warrior, the Magician, and the Lover show the world being quadrated. The Navaho said that there are winds. The Hindus talk of the four faces of god. The early Christians said if you are going to have a complete Gospel, there have to be four gospels. Jung said mythic images are the faces that instincts bring to the world. Human quadrate the world in mythic images. Therefore there must be a four-fold instinctuality.

Jung thought this referred to the four-fold typology of intuition, thinking, sensation, and feeling. Toni Wolff, his lover and teacher, thought it was something else. She thought there were four structural forms of the female psyche, not four functions like Jung thought. Dr. Moore follows this tradition and believes that there are four structural forms to the human psyche, and that they correspond to four energies in the human soul.

The Great Code of the Human Self: A Structural Analysis Arrows indicate dialectical tensions which are built into the deep structure of the psyche and which often lead to splitting of the self.

Men and women alike have these four energies and the task of balancing them. In other words, the energies that men and women must learn first to access, then to balance in their individuation, or in their pilgrimage, in their journey to the Center, are the same four energies. But the way that men and women get to the Center is not the same. That is the critical difference in our genetic plumbing that helps us to understand why we are in the mess we are in today on this planet.

References
Moore, R. (2001). The Archetype of Initiation: Sacred Space, Ritual Process, and Personal Transformation. Philadelphia, PA: Xlibris Corporation.

Moore, R. (1997). Masculine Initiation for the 21st Century: The Global Challenge. The New Warrior Handbook.

robertmoore-phd.comhttp://www.robertmoore-phd.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=feature.display&feature_ID=19&ParentCat=17

Dr. Moore's primary area of research, Neo-Jungian Structural Psychoanalysis, is the result of almost three decades of research. Use the links below to examine the theory in more detail.

The Great Code
There is enormous evidence to believe, along with Carl Jung, that there is a Great Code which, when followed, leads a person towards personal wholeness, and that this Great Code is, in fact, your two million year old DNA. Learn more about the Great Code.

Structures of the Self
Depth psychology infers the existence of archetypes in the collective unconscious in part by the startling correspondences between the guiding images of very different cultures. These images surface in myths, in philosophical and theological speculations, in artistic productions, in scientific achievements, and in institutional and societal designs. Discover the mythic images of the King/Queen, Warrior, Magician, and Lover.

The Human Self
There are four foundational archetypes of the mature masculine (as well as the immature masculine). Each of these triangles - King, Warrior, Magician, Lover - since they are interdependent aspects of the single masculine Self, fit together into a pyramidal form. The pyramid as it has appeared throughout the ages can be interpreted as a symbol for the masculine Self. Learn more about the masculine Self.

Male and Female Differences
This is the source of so many divorces and so much inter-gender misunderstanding. Just as the woman at mid-life is powering up into her aggression, her Warrior, a man is discovering the opening of his heart, his Lover. They pass each other in the night, literally pass each other in the night. Discover the differences between males and females.

The Four Initiations
We are the social animal. We are the cultural animal. We are the ape that creates culture. Put us down anywhere and we will create myths and rituals based upon the four foundational powers (King, Warrior, Magician, and Lover). Examine how initiations are created along these instinctual lines.

The Journey to the Center
There is much talk about a habitat for humanity; that it is just a new way to talk about the old idea of finding the Center so there can be a world that is habitable for humans who have found orientation. Explore what the Journey to the Center entails.

Role of the Elder
Elders are disappearing all over our planet. Men that use to carry the eldership of the tribe or community are now alcoholic, in major depression, committing suicide, or on golf courses - or all the above. Learn more about becoming an elder.

 

robertmoore-phd.comhttp://www.robertmoore-phd.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=feature.display&feature_ID=5&ParentCat=17

Introduction

Dr. Moore's primary area of research, Neo-Jungian Structural Psychoanalysis, is the result of almost three decades of research.

Learn more background information.

Jungian Studies
Carl Gustav Jung founded the school of analytical or "depth" psychology. His approach provides a truly transcultural understanding of the human psyche and the overall framework for Dr. Moore's work. Discover more about Carl Jung.

Archetype Defined
Jung and his successors have found that on the level of the deep unconscious the psyche of every person is grounded in what Jung called the "collective unconscious," made up of instinctual patterns and energy configurations probably inherited genetically throughout the generations of our species. These archetypes provide the very foundations of our behaviors - our thinking, our feeling, and our characteristic human reactions. Learn more about archetypes.

Archetypal Structures
The psyche's archetypal structures serve as conduits for great charges of primal psychological energy. Because of their own dynamic configuration, they mold this energy, imparting to it their particular patterns. For any individual the archetypes may be creative and life-enhancing or destructive and death-dealing. Discover more about the psyche's archetypal structures.

Theory Overview
Some Jungian analysts romanticize the archetypes. They encourage their clients to find and claim the particular archetype or myth that has organized their lives. Life then becomes a process of affirming and living out this myth. However, our goal should not be to identify with an archetypal pattern, or to allow a mythic expression of it to make our lives what it will. For when we romantically identify with any archetype we cease to be viable human beings moving toward wholeness. Explore Dr. Moore's theory in more detail.

 

robertmoore-phd.comhttp://www.robertmoore-phd.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=page.display&page_id=21

Dr. Moore's early research, noted in his book

The Magician and the Analyst: The Archetype of the Magus in Occult Spirituality and Jungian Analysis

, served as a threshold to the discovery of structures in the collective unconscious and marked his first steps toward the "Neo-Jungian Structural Psychoanalysis" that is today, almost three decades later, his primary area of research which includes the mapping of the inner geography and structure of the archetypal Self, its different forms of libido and lines of psychological development, and related structures in the collective unconscious.

His work has its roots in the intellectual lineage which includes such theorists as Adolf Bastian (1826-1905), Wilheml Dilthey (1833-1911), Carl Jung (1875-1961), Gaston Bachelard (1884-1962), Erik Erikson (1902-1994), Joseph Campbell (1904-1987), Mircea Eliade (1907-1986), Ludwig von Bertalanffy, Victor Turner (1920-1983), Edward Edinger (1922-1998), Joseph Henderson, Toni Wolff (1888-1953), Edward Whitmont, Anthony Stevens, Theodore Millon, and many others.

Dr. Moore's research rests on a few fundamental assumptions that challenge the current intellectual climate while continuing the intellectual tradition of the psychic unity of humanity. According to these assumptions, (1) the human psyche is structured, (2) most of the basic structure is species-wide (a collective unconscious underlies both the personal and cultural unconscious), (3) this structure influences basic behavior patterns, including those of ritual processes and the mythic imagination, (4) the morphogenic potential of this structure requires cultural support for its mature evocation and integration in human selfhood and society, (5) the structures can be scientifically studied with interdisciplinary cooperation, and (6) continuing ignorance or denial of these structures and their importance, however rationalized, has many social, political, ethical, and spiritual dangers.

Continue at Jungian Studies

References:
Moore, R. (2002). The Magician and the Analyst: The Archetype of the Magus in Occult Spirituality and Jungian Analysis. Philadelphia, PA: Xlibris Corporation.

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Those of us who have been influenced by the thinking of the great Swiss psychologist Carl Jung have great reason to hope that the external deficiencies we have encountered in the world as would-be men (and women) can be corrected. And we have not only hope but actual experience as clinicians and as individuals of inner resources not imagined by psychology before Jung. It is our experience that deep within every human are blueprints, what we can also call "hard wiring," for the calm and positive mature masculine. Jungians refer to these masculine potentials as archetypes, or "primordial images."

Jung and his successors have found that on the level of the deep unconscious the psyche of every person is grounded in what Jung called the "collective unconscious," made up of instinctual patterns and energy configurations probably inherited genetically throughout the generations of our species. These archetypes provide the very foundations of our behaviors - our thinking, our feeling, and our characteristic human reactions. They are the image makers that artists and poets and religious prophets are so close to. Jung related them directly to the instincts in other animals.

Most of us are familiar with the fact that baby ducks soon after they are hatched attach themselves to whomever or whatever is walking by at the time. This phenomenon is called imprinting. It means that the newly hatched duckling is wired for "mother," or "caretaker." It doesn't have to learn - from the outside, as it were - what a caretaker is. The archetype for caretaker comes on line shortly after the duckling comes into the world. Unfortunately, however, the "mother" the duckling meets in those first moments may not be adequate to the task of taking care of it. Nonetheless, although those in the outer world may not live up to the instinctual expectation (they may not even be ducks!), the archetype for caretaker forms the duckling's behavior.

In a similar way, human beings are wired for "mother" and "father" and many other human relationships, as well as all forms of the human experience of the world. And though those in the outer world may not live up to the archetypal expectation, the archetype is nonetheless present. It is constant and universal in all of us. We, like the duckling that mistakes a cat for its mother, mistake our actual parents for the ideal patterns and potentials within us.

These blueprints appear to be great in number, and they manifest themselves as both male and female. There are archetypes that pattern the thoughts and feelings and relationships of women, and there are archetypes that pattern the thoughts and feelings and relationships of men. In addition, Jungians have found that in every man there is a feminine subpersonality called the Anima, made up of the feminine archetypes. And in every women there is a masculine subpersonality called the Animus, made up of the masculine archetypes. All human beings can access the archetypes, to a greater or lesser degree. We do this, in fact, in our interrelating with one another.

Continue at Archetypal Structures

References:
The Quartet of Books: The King Within, The Warrior Within, The Magician Within, The Lover Within.

masculinity-movies.comhttp://www.masculinity-movies.com/articles/king-warrior-magician-lover

by Eivind Figenschau Skjellum

by Eivind Figenschau Skjellum

A brief introduction to the archetypes of the mature masculine

The seminal work by Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette that underlies this article.

As any man with life experience knows, life is a constant struggle wherein the desired goal is our attainment of inner peace as well as the ability to give and receive love fearlessly. On this journey of discovery and growth, there are many forces within us that battle for attention. Our personality is not a single entity with one homogenous voice as much as it is a variety of different voices that battle for dominance. Sometimes unfamiliar voices may shock or delight, and sometimes worn out voices may become so irritating, so jarring, so profoundly removed from what we want to hear, that we come to hate ourselves.

One of the most important types of work we can can do in our growth into maturity is to identify and befriend these voices, so that they find and relax into their rightful place in what becomes an increasingly integrated psyche. Maybe we must tune some voices down, others a little up. Maybe we must make the baritone into a soprano, the bass into a tenor. Whatever voices are within us, our primary mission in life is to conduct them from being a cacophony to being a beautiful and powerful choir. Such important work requires a powerful framework, a model for teaching, learning, and living. That is why we will now dive into the deep waters of the archetypes known as King, Warrior, Magician, Lover (KWML).

Jung did very important, revolutionary work on the archetypes and the collective unconscious. In his work he speaks of the anima, the feminine within the man, and the animus, the masculine within the woman. He further expounds that the anima and animus have four stages of development. And while these stages probably warrant an article unto themselves, Jung is merely mentioned in this context as a facilitator for the discovery of the KWML archetypes. Jung described four stages in his model, from immature to mature: Eve/Adam, Helen/Planner, Mary/Professor, Sophia/Guide as stages of an evolutionary path whereby the last stage is more evolved then the first. The KWML-model, on the other hand, attributes equal importance to all archetypes, claiming no superiority of one over another*.

* However, depending on cultural conditions, some archetypes may be more needed than others.

However, as outlined in the book King, Warrior, Magician, Lover - Rediscovering the archetypes of the mature masculine by Douglas Gillette and Robert Moore, there is a clear line drawn between immature archetypes - boy psychology - and mature archetypes - man psychology. In boy psychology, there is in the model a clearly delineated path of evolution, which yields to a more open landscape with the onset of man psychology. Additionally, within each of the four archetype axises, is not only an immature and a mature stage, but a pyramid structure of the boy and of the man wherein we find the integrated archetype at the apex, and active and passive bipolar shadow aspects in the left and right corners (fig. 1).

Fig. 1: The KWML model

It is important to recognize that when we are not in contact with an archetype, we are automatically ruled by its bipolar shadow. And when we are ruled by the shadow archetype, we tend to switch back and forth between the active and passive poles, completely at the mercy of events.

What we learn from this system is that healing and integration happens when we recognize that one archetype dominates too strongly in our psyche, and must be balanced by another, or when we recognize that the archetypes we animate are sourced in the active or passive shadow poles, as opposed to the integrated and mature aspect. Now, let's take a brief look at what makes a boy before we look at the man and his archetypes up close.

Understanding the Boy

The differences between a boy and a man should be apparent, but in our current cultural climate, we seem to have lost this understanding. Boyhood has come to dominate the male population of Western culture, and manhood discarded as dark, destructive, scary, and problematic. The boy has been pushed to occupy the space left behind by the man - something he is not ready for - and his values of youth, physical vitality, and beauty come to dominate. He has been celebrated through diverse cultural phenomena, such as the boyband, young, rebellious athletes, the irresponsibility and «don't give a damn»-attitude proselytized by the advertising industry (look no further than Coca Cola Zero adverts), the take-what-I-want-and-fuck-you-if-you-try-to-stop-me of parts of the music industry, the self-serving ways of young stockbrokers and real estate agents etc, the wave of movies in which immature men are turned into poster boys, the admiration of heroics, the celebration of youth over wisdom etc. The list goes on.

The problem with this is that we end up with a very limited view of masculinity, one rooted in insecurity and the desire for sex, fame, money, and power. We become so uprooted in ourselves, separated from our true core, that we define ourselves through external factors. We must recognize one basic fact: The boy is the slave of his ego. He often has little control over his nervous system, and fries his life energy on pointless mental pursuits and drama. He is the guy who can't sit still and can't tolerate silence. He is the guy who freaks out from prolonged eye contact. He is the guy who is easily insulted, who tries very hard to be seen (or equally hard not to be), who fishes for love and is easily hurt. He is the guy who has little structure and integrity in life, and who - despite his myriad claims to goodness - won't stand up for a friend in times of need. It's not that he doesn't want to do the right thing. It's that he is not able to. His life is in disarray and he is completely under the spell of the feminine, and is happy only as long as mummy is close. This is the subconscious mother, the archetypal mother, the feminine as a whole - not necessarily the biological mother. The purpose of the Hero archetype, the last archetype of boyhood psychology, is to break free from this bondage to the Feminine.

The first three archetypes are of boyhood psychology are: The Divine Child, the Precocious Child, and the Oedipal Child. These, as well as the Hero, will be featured in detail later on. For now, I choose to focus on the man.

Understanding the Man

The hero's journey - the last step on the evolution of boy psychology - finally takes the boy into the realms of the man. This, however, often comes at great cost, and is often preceded by a time of existential crisis, what Robert Bly refers to as «ashes work». In the legends, the story always ends when the hero returns having slain the dragon, rescued the princess, and received the kingdom as reward. It doesn't describe the enormous difficulty the hero has settling into his adult responsibilities as king, and doesn't investigate his ability to stay faithful to his new queen, or his inclination to throw it all away - all those nasty responsibilities - to ride into the world on his trusty stallion once more.

We said that the defining characteristic of the Boy is his enslavement to his ego. The defining characteristic of the Man is his mastery of it. The Man has subjugated his ego and turned it into an ally. This is impossible unless the crisis of ashes has first been lived or worked through. Any boy who is to become a man must feel his fearful way through the utter pointlessness of everything to serve the world. And it is of course exactly because our lives are so safe and comfortable that most of us never grow up to serve, never leaving boyhood behind.

Let's look at the archetypes of the man, starting with the King, before we move on to the others. What follows are effectively summaries of the chapters in Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette's book.

The King

The King is the source of order in the kingdom. If he is a wise and just king, the kingdom prospers, people eat well and are safe from harm. In the kingdom of the wise king, laughter rings through the lands, the crops shoot up high, joyful celebrations keep the woods awake, merchants travel with overflowing carts to lively markets. The king is the harmonizing principle, the subjugator of chaos, the uniter of opposites. He is the channel through which the gods communicate, and he channels divine blessings to his people and the lands (to whom he is «wed»). He is selfless, and puts the good of his people above his own needs. When the King grows weak, darkness threatens the borders of the kingdom, the sun disappears from the sky, and the crops wither and die. When the king dies, he knows, he is merely replaced by another in a lineage of divinely blessed kings, which humbles him Remember the saying «The King is dead, long live the King.»

In the psyche of the man, the King archetype is the central archetype, around which the rest of the psyche is organized. If the King energy in us is weak, our psyche falls in disarray, and chaos threatens our lands. The man who is constantly overwhelmed by life - who can't seem to find harmony or order - must develop the King energy, often in conjunction with Warrior energy to protect his borders.

The two main functions of the King are:

1. Live according to the Tao, the Dharma, the Word, and the lands will flourish

2. Bring fertility and blessing. The King is the masculine equivalent of the Great Mother, and he is wed to the lands. The king's vitality and sexuality directly reflect on his kingdom.

The Shadow King: The Tyrant and the Weakling

The Tyrant is the active pole of the Shadow King. The Tyrant, unlike the King, is not the harmonizing center of the kingdom, and his power is so fragile that he hates with a passion all new life; the beauty and purity of a mere baby boy threatens the Tyrant's rule. He does not realize that a King is merely a channel, and wants the power to be associated with himself. He will even develop godly pretensions to cover up his enormous insecurity. His degradation of others and all beauty is limitless, as everything good, true, and beautiful reminds him of his own shortcomings. He is extremely sensitive to criticism, and will be deflated by the slightest remark, responding with rage, when what he feels is fear and vulnerability.

The Weakling is the passive pole of the Shadow King. He is not centered in himself and lacks inner peace and harmony, and is prone to paranoia. He suspects that those around him are disloyal, and his fear of betrayal will inevitably cause him to switch over to the Tyrant to control them.

The Magician

The Magician is the wise man, the sage, the knower of secrets. He sees and navigates the inner worlds, he understands the dynamics and energy flows of the outer. He is a master of technology, engineering, mathematics, mysticism, and logic. He reads the stars, navigates the soul, and writes the laws. In the legends, he is the King's close advisor, who stops the regent's anger with cool rationality before he acts rashly and channels to him knowledge from hidden sources. The Magician is the thinker, and all knowledge that requires special training is his domain. The Magician has the capacity to detach from events - the chaos of the world - and draw on essential truths and resources deep within him. He thinks clearly in times of crisis, and enables us to take a broader view of things. He governs the observing ego, and is the meditator that reveals the truth of the universe, the shaman who communicates with the ancestors and stars

The Shadow Magician: The Manipulator and the Denying «Innocent» one.

The Manipulator is the active pole of the Shadow Magician. He works in covert ways to undermine others. He withholds crucial information, and deliberately sets others up so as to appear inferior to himself. The specialist knowledge he possesses makes him feel proud and gives him a feeling of being better than. That feeling is all he lives for, so he is not prepared to share his knowledge, unless the price is right (and even then probably withholding crucial details). He will rather use it as a weapon, ready to strike when the impact is the most devastating.

The Innocent one is the passive pole of the Shadow Magician. He wants the status belonging to a true Magician, but he doesn't want the responsibilities. He doesn't want to be burdened with helping, of setting up sacred space for others' learning. His main focus is to learn exactly enough to sabotage those who are trying their damnedest to make a difference, so that no other man will get achieve that which he is too lazy to strive for. He is envious of the vitality of others, because he is so «flat» himself. Whenever confronted with his elusive and destructive behaviour, he responds «who, me?». He is a master of manipulating others into thinking that it really wasn't their doing, a carefully crafted puppet theatre conducted behind a smokescreen by the Manipulator.

The Warrior

The warrior is a powerhouse of energy, the source of which is a transpersonal commitment. He is fiercely loyal to his warrior code - which is his honor - and to the king, who mythologically represents his purpose. The warrior is not concerned about his own comfort and security in pursuit of his goal, as his training teaches him to live with death as his constant companion. The domain of the Warrior is the battlefield - be it a battlefield of war, of spirituality, or of moral ethics. The Warrior's purpose is often to destroy, but the mature warrior destroys only that which is negative and harmful to the world. He is a master tactician, knowing at all times his limitations, and finds creative ways around them. The warrior is not a thinker, he is a doer. Thinking is his enemy, because it inhibits his ability to act swiftly and with force. He trains himself not to think, and becomes a master of his mind, attitudes, and body. The warrior is detached from life, with an almost infinite ability to withstand psychological and physical pain in pursuit of his goal. He is a little «unhuman», always chasing the shadow of the attainment of his next big purpose, always putting emphasis on his mission as opposed to his relationships.

The Shadow Warrior: The Sadist and the Masochist

The Sadist is the active pole of the Shadow Warrior. The Warrior's detachment from life leaves the door open to cruelty. The Warrior is most vulnerable in the area of relationships, where he must constantly stay vigiliant of his mind and emotions. They must not be repressed, but be under control, lest cruelty sneak into him while he isn't looking. The Sadist hates weakness and vulnerability, which is a projection of his hidden Masochist, and will take great glee in tormenting those unfortunate souls that remind him of his shadow. The Sadist directed inwards has people running themselves into the ground out of deep anxiety. They have low sense of self-worth, and will endure great self-torment on their way to burnout.

The Masochist is the passive pole of the Shadow Warrior. The Masochist projects Warrior energy onto others, and experiences himself as impotent and vulnerable in their presence. He is unable to defend himself psychologically and allows others to manipulate and mess with him. We will absorb an enormous amount of abuse until one day we snap, and percolate back to the Sadist.

The Lover

The lover is finely attuned to the realm of the senses and worships beauty. He is a musician, an artist, and a lover of all things, both inner and outer. He is passionate, and delights in touching and being touched. He wants to always stay connected, and does not recognize boundaries. He wants to experience the world as one ongoing big orgasm of hearts uniting as One. He is the mystic who feels everything as himself, and the source of all intuition. Through his feeling capacity, he is finely attuned to people's energy, capable of reading them like an open book. His desire for love and connectedness considered, feeling into other people and discovering dark intentions is a painful experience for him. He is opposed to all structures that maintain separateness - of all law and order that keep hearts lonely and isolated. He is, in other words, opposed to all the other archetypes. The Lover is crucial in keeping the other archetypes energized, humane, and in touch with the ultimate purpose of love. The Lover keeps them from sadism.

The Shadow Lover: The Addicted and the Impotent Lover

The Addicted Lover is the active pole of the Shadow Lover. He is constantly searching for the fulfillment of his sensual desires. A true hedonist, he throws himself into a neverending and exhausting search for the fulfillment, without ever really knowing what he truly looks for. He is pulled around by circumstances and his constantly shifting desires, never finding rest. A woman here, a women there, then music, art, fine wine - whatever keeps his sensual side alive. The Addicted lover has not solidified in his internal structures, and will forever hunt for the attainment of his desire, helplessly shackled to the desire for union with Mother (the realm of sensory experience is the realm of the Feminine).

The Impotent Lover is the passive pole of the Shadow Lover. He is chronically depressed, and feels cut off from himself and others. He loses his zest for life, his energy all but gone.He is sexually inactive, and will withdraw from all demands that are placed on him and his sexuality. If his partner becomes too demanding, requesting a sex life from him he is uncapable to offer, his feelings of imprisonment may propel him out of the relationship and onto the endless road of addiction that is the domain of the Addicted Lover.

Working with the archetypes

A September 2010 addition to this article, this conclusive part on working with the archetypes is needed for the reader who actually wishes to go further with this information. I have experienced something remarkable in studying the archetypes – where most conceptual learning has a tendency to make me feel heady and intellectual, reading about the archetypes has an odd pull downwards and inwards. It's as if these ancient voices of archetypal, mythical men wants me to descend into the subterranean parts of my inner world. When I learned that the reptilian brainstem lights up when the archetypes activate in a person, it made perfect sense to me; these energies are ancient.

The quality of tuning into this material is unlike anything I have ever felt before − and I have studied a lot by now. My experience is that if we let ourselves soak in this material − let its wisdom seep into our pores − we will become prone to recognizing archetypal patterns in our daily lives. In that context, it's vital to note, as previously suggested, that lest we have a conscious and mature relationship to the archetype, we are ruled by its bipolar shadow. In other words, the man who says such a thing as "I have no need for the Warrior archetype" is by default ruled by the bipolar sadist/masochist. A peace-loving, Warrior-denying hippie may for example be really strong on the masochist, touching his inner sadist on his more violent days. Similarly, a stern, authoritarian patriarch faced with the challenge of expressing appreciation of beauty may think that is "for faggots". Unfortunately, that will make him sexually impotent and/or frustrated and then when he's tired of that, he may swing into the position of the Addicted Lover (sometimes this is the point at which a homophobe may "come out of the closet", which may or may not be an authentic expression of his sexual identity. See American Beauty). It's a painful fact that anything that is not brought into the light ends up controlling our lives. What we resist persists.

So in actually working with the archetypes, awareness of them is as always the first step. While an information product on how to work on the archetypes in our daily lives is in the pipeline, we have room for a couple of practices and a brief advice to identify which of your archetypes are healthy and which ones aren't. If you draw a blank when feeling into any of these archetypes, chances are its bipolar shadow is running your life. So that is the home work for now: pick one of the practices below (which facilitate growth and integration) and use them to develop that archetype in you which is most in need of growing up. And if you are so inclined, come back when more material is made available here. The newsletter (signup form in the sidebar) will help you keep up to date.

• King: Start a men's group. Host a dinner party. Do a presentation in which you care more about the interiority of the members of the audience than looking good. Start seeing the impact you have on other people's wellbeing and tune into the feeling that the people around you are citizens of your very own kingdom. They are in your care.

• Warrior: Take up martial arts. Exercise. Engage in a confrontation you have postponed. Always tell the truth. Maintain perfect integrity. Work on maintaining good boundaries.

• Magician: Do DIY engineering projects. Study the stars. Study the KWML archetypes. Study anything. Build a small laboratory and get to know the world of chemicals. Take up spirituality in order to penetrate the mysteries of the Cosmos. Teach something.

• Lover: Express your appreciation of beauty. Take up dance lessons. Do sensuality practices. Turn sex into your art. Listen to music that moves you (yes, move with it) and make really enjoying it a practice of presence (many people who "enjoy music" use it as a distraction from life. In practicing the Lover archetype, you should not). Start playing an instrument. Sing.

These are but a few ideas. Trust your intuition and get started. You cannot afford to let this opportunity pass you by.

• Purchase the book

Video introductions to the archetypes

• The King archetype

• The Warrior archetype

• The Magician archetype

• Lover archetype coming late summer/early fall

Introducing "The KWML experience": A new life immersion program

Are you looking for more information about the KWML archetypes? If so, you're in luck! I'm currently creating a KWML home study course. Sign up here for more info! (this is a new list with only KWML material)

robertmoore-phd.comhttp://www.robertmoore-phd.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=page.display&page_id=24

The psyche's archetypal structures serve as conduits for great charges of primal psychological energy. Because of their own dynamic configuration, they mold this energy, imparting to it their particular patterns. For any individual the archetypes may be creative and life-enhancing or destructive and death-dealing. The result depends in part on how the Ego is able to relate to them based on its own developmental history. Properly accessing and using the Libido available to the psyche amount to a sort of psychological technology. If we learn the technology and use it properly, we can use the energy to make generative men and women of ourselves. But if we fail to learn how to use these vast energy resources, or misuse them, we will be courting our own destruction, and we may take others with us.

If we try to ignore the archetypes, they exert their mighty influence upon us nonetheless. They bend us to their nonhuman, sometimes inhuman wills. We must therefore face the evidence depth psychology and other studies have provided us. We are not as free of instinct or unconscious content as we have been encouraged to believe. Genuine freedom for the Ego results from acknowledging and properly accessing the chemical fires that burn hot in our unconscious minds.

Some Jungian analysts romanticize the archetypes. They encourage their patents to find and claim the particular archetype or myth that has organized their lives. Life then becomes a process of affirming and living out this myth. However, our goal should not be to identify with an archetypal pattern, or to allow a mythic expression of it to make our lives what it will. For when we romantically identify with any archetype we cease to be viable human beings moving toward wholeness. If we are drawn to an archetype by its seductive power, its promise that we can shirk our individual responsibilities and the pain involved in being a person with a personal Ego, we will be crushed by the sheer weight of unconscious compulsive thoughts.

More precisely stated, the objective is to develop mature Ego structures strong enough to channel useful libidinal energy into our daily lives. We can begin by making ourselves conscious of how archetypal energies already possess us. Only then can we begin to access them creatively, through a process that provides us with a greater sense of free will in the choices of our lives. The effort to achieve liberation for ourselves will in turn motivate us to help others do the same. Our renewed energies benefit ourselves and others on all the levels of our psychic organization: the personal, the familial, the communal, national, and global.

Continue at the Great Code

References:
The Quartet of Books: The King Within, The Warrior Within, The Magician Within, The Lover Within.